FILE: An aerial view of Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco on April 10, 2025.
Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images
The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department announced it is preparing to disassemble the Vaillancourt Fountain along Embarcadero Plaza on Monday, following a lengthy saga surrounding its preservation and importance in the city’s history. The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the news. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)
Contractors began installing more fencing around the 710-ton fountain this week as photographers took detailed snapshots of the brutalist structure, department spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton told SFGATE in an email.
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Notably, the announcement comes nearly a week before the department was slated to host its third meeting soliciting feedback from the community on the $32.5 million transformation of the plaza and Sue Bierman Park. However, Barak Aparton told SFGATE the disassembly of the concrete sculpture is “a separate thing.” She said the department’s decision to expedite the fountain’s removal is over “significant public safety risks caused by its deterioration, including structural instability, widespread corrosion, and missing reinforcement, which weaken the structure and increase the risk of failure during an earthquake.”
Specifically, one of the structure’s 10-ton cantilevered arms is resting on another arm — “something it was not designed to do,” Barak Aparton said — leading to discernible stress cracks in the concrete. She reiterated the department’s previous findings that the historic structure contains hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead.
It “has become an ‘attractive nuisance’ due to unauthorized climbing,” she added.
FILE: People play on padel courts next to the Vaillancourt Fountain on Feb. 13, 2024.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
The $4 million removal paid for by the parks department, which maintains the fountain for the San Francisco Arts Commission, is expected to take several months. On Monday, workers are set to begin labeling and cataloging each piece of the concrete sculpture for disassembly, a process that will take at least a week. By next month, a crane will remove parts of the structure arm by arm, and a flatbed truck will haul the pieces away to an off-site storage facility, which has not yet been determined by the department.
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During the project, the immediate area surrounding the fountain will be inaccessible, though the rest of the plaza will remain open, including the padel courts and walking path leading to Sue Bierman Park, Barak Aparton told SFGATE.
“Park rangers will provide security and assistance in the area,” she said. “Construction fencing will be adjusted as needed to accommodate scheduled public events at Embarcadero Plaza and continue to ensure public safety.”
The fountain designed by Armand Vaillancourt has become a hotly contested landmark since its 1972 construction. Reviled by some art critics and renowned by others as a unique facet of the city’s history and a storied skate spot, it has been inoperable since May 2024 after its last remaining pump failed.
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Several months later, in July, city officials announced plans to renovate the plaza with the construction of a new waterfront park more than twice the size of Union Square. Renderings showed 5 acres of vast greenery replacing the existing concrete expanse and pathways leading to food trucks and sculpture gardens strewn with fairy lights in a bid to draw people downtown. Notably, the fountain was absent from the drawings, prompting the now-96-year-old artist to make the six-hour flight from Montreal to San Francisco last May to make a bid for its preservation. A legion of supporters described it as “a piece of San Francisco’s cultural identity” and “a true icon of civic space.”
But in January, the Board of Supervisors approved a motion to remove the fountain after the SF Recreation and Park Department deemed it a “public safety hazard.” In response, the preservationist group Friends of the Plaza sued, challenging the environmental review process, but a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the removal was denied by a San Francisco Superior Court judge earlier this month.
FILE: Sculptor Armand Vaillancourt created the fountain along the San Francisco Embarcadero, near the Ferry Building, in 1971.
Dick Darrell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Susan Brandt-Hawley, an attorney representing Friends of the Plaza, told the Chronicle on Wednesday that she planned to file an appeal to prevent any work beyond new fencing and documentation of the site. “There is no emergency here and there is no public harm,” she said, adding that the group will seek the sculpture’s restoration and return to Embarcadero Plaza if it is taken away.
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Barak Aparton told SFGATE the disassembly and transport of the fountain will be managed by Silverado Contractors, a demolition contractor in Emeryville, while Architectural Resources Group will serve as the technical preservation consultant. BXP, which owns the Embarcadero Center, will oversee contractor coordination. The San Francisco Department of Public Works is also collaborating on the project in consultation with the San Francisco Arts Commission.
“The project will proceed in clearly defined phases, each designed to ensure the fountain is documented, handled, and removed with professional rigor while prioritizing safety,” Barak Aparton said.
The SF Recreation and Park Department is set to host its next community meeting to discuss the future of Embarcadero Plaza on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Codi, 3 Embarcadero Center.
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