Civic Center, more than any large spot on San Francisco’s map, shows the extent to which reality can fall short of grand plans.

The name conjures up an aura of dignified calm. So do the imposing government buildings that frame large plazas ideal for such events as last month’s Pride festivities.

Most days, though, the quarter-mile walk from United Nations Plaza to City Hall is forlorn at best and forbidding at worst. You’re more likely to see somebody shooting up drugs than a comfortable place to sit down. That’s why it’s heartening that the city now is working to enliven the landscape, even adding a pair of colorful playgrounds at Civic Center Plaza, while embarking on its most ambitious effort yet to rethink the public realm for the district as a whole.

All these efforts are creative and overdue. They also show how difficult the long-sought makeover will be.

“There are a thousand tentacles of interest that we have to address,” said Willett Moss of CMG Landscape Architecture. “It’s a crazy, crazy project, but a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city.”

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Under the direction of the city’s Planning Department, Moss’ firm is leading the design effort to remake and unite the three large blocks that include Civic Center Plaza, U.N. Plaza and the 300-foot-wide block of Fulton Street bracketed by the Main Library on the south and the Asian Art Museum on the north. Streets nearby might be narrowed so that they’re friendlier to pedestrians and bicyclists.

The idea is to make the three-block stretch into a compelling sequence of varied spaces — civic in scale, able to absorb protests and parades with ease, but cozy enough so that nearby residents and workers might want to stop by on a daily basis.

The team led by CMG began work last summer, and this spring it unveiled three alternative design concepts.

One, “Public Platform,” emphasizes gathering spots of varying size and includes a pair of grassy oval slopes facing City Hall. “Culture Connector” is described on the project website as “an inclusive commons that prioritizes Ecology, Wellness + Variety,” and seeks to attract visitors to Fulton Street with a sculpture garden and eight “Best of SF” retail kiosks.

The third concept, “Civic Sanctuary,” nods to history with an orderly layout of spaces along the progression from Market Street to City Hall. It also is the only scheme that restores the fountain at U.N. Plaza, a collage of more than 100 chunks of granite from the 1970s that is loved by devotees of renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, the designer, and scorned or avoided by almost everybody else.

City planners intend to release a single conceptual proposal in November that would blend elements of each plan, the design equivalent of a buffet meal. Then there would be an environmental review. Assuming that the final plan is approved by the Board of Supervisors, the city would still need to assemble funding for a project certain to be expensive — though it likely would be built in phases rather than all at once.

More Information Options, activities More details on the Civic Center Public Realm Plan, including detailed looks at the three design options and an interactive survey: https://civiccentersf.org Activities in the Civic Center public spaces this summer will include a block party at Civic Center Plaza on the third Thursday of each month and on Fulton Street on the first Sunday of each month. For information on these and other programs: www.civiccentercommons.org

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Each of the three initial concepts has attractive elements, such as the shaded gardens that would define the perimeter of Civic Center Plaza in “Civic Sanctuary.” You also find hints of wishful optimism: In an age where storefronts are vacant across the city, it’s a stretch to think that shoppers will flock to a block of Fulton Street now defined by parked vehicles and people with nowhere else to hang out.

The larger challenge is to tie together the spaces, which exist in very different settings.

Civic Center Plaza sits amid Beaux-Arts landmarks clad in Sierra white granite, while U.N. Plaza flows into Market Street and the Tenderloin. Fulton Street in essence is a service alley, despite the ceremonial scale.

True, CMG is one of the city’s best landscape architecture firms. Its team includes Gehl Studio and Kennerly Architecture, both top-notch. But it’s not easy to “reconcile the desires for civic space and neighborhood parks,” in Moss’ words, and the design effort has a long way to go.

The one current feature retained in each concept is the most recent change to Civic Center Plaza — a pair of playgrounds that opened near Larkin Street in February and are as contemporary as can be.

The duo is named for the late Helen Diller, a local philanthropist whose family funded the $10 million project. The design is by Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, and the Trust for Public Land managed the effort from the first community meetings to the final round of construction.

As expected, the playgrounds attract schoolchildren on cultural field trips who work off energy by clambering on the play structures or testing the swings with noisy gusto. But you’ll also see toddlers of all races brought by their parents from the Tenderloin, and small groups of young children just there to have fun.

The fenced-in spaces replace smaller, conventional playgrounds that dated to the mid-1990s. These, by contrast, are in their own way as memorable as the buildings around them — conjuring up adventurous small worlds that include such unexpected touches as marble-studded panels that screen a ventilation shaft from the parking garage below.

The two main climbing structures, one for each playground, reach as high as 17 feet and are loosely based on foggy skies, with angled steel poles painted stormy gray holding the sky-blue nettings that serve as trampoline-like enticements within the swirled bamboo path.

Even the fences are elegant, with their spacious weave of diamond-patterned metal. They serve as a visual deterrent to children who might otherwise dart toward the street, or stray adults who shouldn’t be inside, yet are subdued enough not to clash with the surrounding architecture.

This isn’t a typical public project. But the emphasis on serving people already in the area — with thoughtful design that has flair — offers lessons as San Francisco focuses on the district’s public realm.

This isn’t a lone effort.

Several city departments and local businesses, as well as institutions including the Asian Art Museum, have joined forces to spruce things up and bring in programmed activities. They range from a life-size chess set to a recent evening “block party” where several hundred people mingled with live music in the background, some drinking blackberry-bourbon lemonade while others played beanbag games near the line of food trucks.

Last week saw the installation of 40 totemic sculptures by Zak Ové, a British Trinidadian artist, that will be on display through November. In a much different cultural vein, there will be a free public viewing of the World Cup finals on July 15 at Civic Center Plaza.

But wait, there’s more: A temporary cafe being installed near the playgrounds should open by October. It’s also being funded by the Diller Family Foundation and will be operated by ever-popular Bi-Rite Market.

The design effort for Civic Center Plaza will take time. So will efforts to attract a cross section of residents and visitors on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, small unexpected pleasures can provide a boost — and the two new playgrounds are a promising start.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron