San Francisco’s Iconic Vaillancourt Fountain Could be Removed in February
On Tuesday, January 13, 2026, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to allow the city to proceed with plans to disassemble and store the Vaillancourt Fountain, which is located at Embarcadero Plaza. This came despite the fact that nearly 97% of the letters received by the board in advance of their meeting supported keeping and rehabilitating the fountain, and a determination by the city that the fountain is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register eligibility presented the city, which wants to demolish the fountain, with a procedural problem because the work was now subject to possible protection under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
As The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) previously reported, on November 3, 2025, the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), which owns the iconic Vaillancourt Fountain, voted eight to five to disassemble the artwork and put it into storage; in the process they granted an exemption from CEQA review because the fountain posed an "immediate" hazard to the public, according to officials at the city’s Recreation and Park Department (RPD). Remarkably, RPD’s “immediate” hazard claim and need for a CEQA exemption was based on a letter obtained from the City’s Planning department that relied 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.
The Docomomo U.S./Northern California Northern chapter filed an appeal on December 1 challenging the CEQA exemption, and that’s why the matter came before the Board of Supervisors last week.
The net effect of the board’s vote is a sweeping pardon for the SFAC and RPD; those agencies were responsible for the fountain’s maintenance, yet for years appear to have failed in their jobs. Now, rather than being held responsible, they're off the hook. According to TCLF’s Founding President & CEO, Charles A. Birnbaum, “The Board of Supervisor’s rejection of the appeal is part of the city’s broader abdication of its responsibility to maintain the Vaillancourt Fountain, and a victory for insincere transparency and institutional neglect.”
