Rincon Hill mini park finally breaks ground

More than a decade after the city bought the land in Rincon Hill, San Francisco Rec & Park announced on Thursday that it had finally broken ground on the incoming Guy Place Mini Park at Four Guy Place, kicking off an estimated one-year construction process.

Previously there were fleeting hopes that the park might actually be done sometime in 2018. In fact, Hoodline reported that the groundbreaking was pending as early as 2016.

But now the park will end up opening to the public nearly a dozen years after the 2007 acquisition of the land near First Street.

In a Thursday press release, Rec & Park said Thursday:

The design will raise the sloping terrain with engineered retaining walls to create a level site. The new park design features eight new trees. The renovation will also create three defined outdoor spaces as ‘rooms” with lush landscapes and three living green columns featuring native California grapevines.

[...] The new park will also include a waterjet-cut steel fence designed by artist Adriane Colburn. Inspired by the historic and contemporary geologic record of the neighborhood.

The projected budget is $4.3 million, mainly from developer impact fees.

Although Rincon Hill could clearly use more green space and there’s not presently much on the lot anyway, the development and community outreach process has been finicky. For example, in 2016 a pair of neighborhood women chained themselves to avocado trees on the lot to protest their removal.

An FAQ about the park project issued in 2017 includes queries like, “New neighbors have moved into the area, shouldn’t they have input?” and “Can the decision to remove trees be repealed?”

The answer to the latter turned out to be no, although the city is including eight new plantings in the incoming design to make up the difference.

• New Designs For Guy Place [Curbed SF]
• Guy Place Rincon Hill [SF Rec Park]
• Guy Place Park FAQ
• City To Break Ground At Guy Place [Hoodline]