A potential lifeline for Embarcadero Plaza's Vaillancourt Fountain?
On November 3, 2025, the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), which owns the iconic Vaillancourt Fountain in the city’s Embarcadero Plaza, voted eight to five to disassemble the artwork and put it into storage. The Docomomo US/Northern California Northern chapter (Docomomo NOCA) filed an appeal on December 1 challenging the pre-text for the vote. A hearing before the city’s Board of Supervisors is scheduled for January 13, 2026—public comments are due by NOON PT on January 2, 2026 (see below).
The city, at the behest of the real estate develop BXP, which is the largest commercial landlord in the city and owns Embarcadero Center next to the plaza, wants to redevelop the plaza and neighboring Sue Bierman Park; the Recreation and Park Department (RPD) is the lead agency in the redevelopment effort. City and BXP officials claim the fountain, which is dry and has been ill-maintained for years, is too costly to rehabilitate and now presents a public health hazard. In order for the artwork to be demolished, the SFAC must first deaccession it. Doing so, however, would be embarrassing because the SFAC’s own ill-management of the work led to its current diminished state (had they maintained the work, as they’re required to do, they would not have been faced with having to remove it from the collection). Instead, the vote to disassemble and put the fountain into storage was a face saving move.
The SFAC faced one significant roadblock; the fountain had recently been determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and that meant changes to it would trigger reviews pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). RPD obtained a letter from the city’s Planning department exempting the fountain from CEQA thus allowing the work to be disassembled “to eliminate an immediate public threat.” Remarkably, the "immediate" hazard claim and CEQA exemption rely on two “reports”—a letter from the Department of Building Inspection and a DCI Engineers fifteen-page report dated May 19, 2025—neither of which say anything about an “immediate” hazard.
While RPD spokesperson Tamara Aparton told the San Francisco Chronicle putting the fountain into storage “is a temporary measure that does not have anything to do with [its] ultimate fate,” the reality is that there’s been a bull’s-eye on the plaza and fountain for years. RPD’s General Manager Phil Ginsburg said during an October 17, 2024, Recreation and Park Commission meeting that he started having conversations with developer BXP about redeveloping the plaza "eight to ten years ago.”
In fact, according to the appeal, the city's "multi-year administrative process [to remove the fountain] illustrates a textbook violation of CEQA’s prohibition of project pre-commitment. With no public review of potential significant environmental impacts such as likely destruction of a historic resource, or identification of feasible mitigations and alternatives—e.g., better fencing and patrolling of the fountain site—the Department proposed to remove the Fountain to facilitate a park redesign long before declaring any 'emergency.' The proposed emergency exemption occurred in tandem with pre-approval."
The appeal goes on to say that CEQA allows for reliance on "a statutory exemption for emergency—thus eliminating environmental review—only for a narrowly construed 'sudden, unexpected occurrence.'" It continues: "There has been no such occurrence here. The worn condition of the historic fountain is the logical outcome of the Department’s calculated, long-term deferred maintenance. The exemption is a pretextual device to unlawfully bypass the mandatory" environmental reviews.
What You Can Do To Help
Contact the Board of Supervisors no later than NOON PT on January 2, 2026 and ask them to support the appeal; specifically Rafael Mandelman, President, and Danny Sauter, who represents the district that includes Embarcadero Plaza and the Vaillancourt Fountain. Be sure to use all three email addresses:
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, President
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
1 Dr Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 244
San Francisco, CA 94102
T: 415-554-6968
E: mandelmanstaff@sfgov.org; bos.legislation@sfgov.org; bos@sfgov.org
Supervisor Danny Sauter
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 244
San Francisco, CA 94102
T: 415-554-7450
E: SauterStaff@sfgov.org; bos.legislation@sfgov.org; bos@sfgov.org
