Work includes a larger entry with a vehicular drop-off on Elk Street, a pedestrian path and landscaping, a new expanded children’s playground, new tennis courts, plus minor repairs to the Recreation Center and an exterior accessible restroom. Appeals slowed things down, but work is scheduled to wrap up in November. Trail restoration around the entirety of the canyon should also start in September, with completion next August.

We’ve been talking about this one for years - the whole park is getting an overhaul with ADA compliance, new playgrounds and infrastructure, and redesigned layouts. It hasn’t been without its hiccups though.

Rec & Park partnered with the Trust for Public Lands for a renovation to replace aging play equipment that is inaccessible and noncompliant with the Americans with Disability Act, a clubhouse with significant visibility issues, and a major lack of green space. The site was cleared this summer, with construction underway.

After a 2008 overhaul of the rest of the park, the grass fields are set to be replaced with synthetic turf, with construction starting in October.

The Golden Gate Park project will create one primary, continuous nature trail with wayfinding and interpretive signs, plus remove hazardous trees and invasive plants and plant new drought-tolerant species in exposed open soil. Hazardous tree removal will begin this fall, with the rest of the project will go to bid to contractors in Winter/ Spring 2014.

Now that the new North Beach Library is happening, the surrounding Joe DiMaggio Playground gets a $5.5M makeover too. Improvements include reorganization and renovation of the children’s play area, tennis courts, paved play areas and pathways, access improvements, and landscaping and seating improvements.

The lower section of the Visitacion Valley park got upgraded in 2006, and now the upper portion will include accessible parking spaces, pathway, and picnic tables, a new bench and trash receptacles, refurbished picnic tables and barbecues, tree and shrub removal, site grading, parking bollards, boulders, a retaining wall and new landscape planting. Work began this August, with a completion date planned for February 2014.