There will still be street crossings at Larkin and Hyde Streets, but we’re trying to minimize them so you can get off the BART at UN Plaza and stroll on up to Civic Center Plaza.

Would the original design still work today?

It would be more functional for big events than it is now. I was here for the Women’s March in 2018, and you couldn’t see anything because of the rows of trees down the middle of the plaza.

But our culture has shifted, and spaces need to provide for the daily uses and needs of people. The Tenderloin and Central SoMa are radically underserved in terms of open space. On top of that, there’s upwards of 50,000 workers coming through here daily. So the plaza is operating not only as our democratic public space — where the city comes to gather, celebrate, and protest — but also as neighborhood park space. That’s a significant point of tension we struggled with throughout the design process. The ambition here is to be incredibly inclusive.

‘This sounds naive, but I think we have to do it all.’ — Willett Moss

The new playgrounds and the Bi-Rite café have brought more people to the plaza. What else does it need to become more inclusive?

Well, what are we sitting on right now? These odd metal boxes are vents for Brooks Hall beneath us.

Willett Moss, sitting on an “odd metal box” instead of a bench. (Photo: Lydia Lee)

So the redesign includes basic, fundamental services: more seating than you can imagine, multiple public restrooms, drinking water fountains, trees that actually provide shade. I was in Japan recently and there are immaculate public bathrooms wherever and whenever you need one. And if you’re elderly or a parent with small kids, it makes going out of the house imaginable. None of this is rocket science.

The homelessness crisis has put a lot of pressure on public spaces. How do you address that issue in the design?

By providing basic services, the idea is that anyone and everyone can be comfortable here. This is the Bryant Park [in New York City] approach, where there are so many chairs that everyone has a seat. The plan does have a nod to reality — all the planting is surrounded by fencing. And there’s a docent group called Urban Alchemy that is tasked with managing antisocial behavior.

As we walk around the plaza, it’s striking to see so much on-street parking in such a prominent location.

When you look around, the first thing you see is all the cars. Meanwhile, the parking garage is almost never at capacity. The plan is to remove most of the parking around the plaza, which buys us another 15 feet and gives us room to put in trees that surround it. The streets on all sides are excessively wide, so we can potentially narrow them and add bike lanes. We’re proposing that Grove St. in front of Bill Graham auditorium be closed to regular car traffic and be part of a bike route that the city is designing to connect to Hayes Valley.

And it’s possible to have soccer fields?

Yes, the lawns in the plaza today are used occasionally for soccer, and the Civic Center Initiative started prototyping soccer on Fulton last summer. In the plan, the four lawns are multipurpose, but are also sized to accommodate games with four kids per side. They are framed by terraced seating, which should help keep stray balls on the field.

Should we be spending money on this now when the city needs so many other things, including affordable housing?

This sounds naïve, but I think we have to do it all. It’s about the long game and creating city stability and a sense of pride. Studies have shown the benefit of well-managed open space to health and well-being. When you have super-dense housing, as in the Tenderloin, you need that open space for a healthy and happy community.

Lydia Lee writes about architecture and design in the Bay Area.

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