Beforehand undisclosed public paperwork reveal the town of San Francisco might have misled the general public about who in the end bears duty for sustaining and repairing Armand Vaillancourt’s namesake Brutalist sculpture and fountain in Embarcadero Plaza.
As well as, new info reveals that metropolis officers had been discussing a deliberate redevelopment of the plaza round a decade earlier than such plans had been made public in 2024. These plans didn’t seem to incorporate preserving the landmark Vaillancourt Fountain—a public artwork asset the town of San Francisco has a obligation to keep up—or the equally vital Embarcadero Plaza wherein the monument is situated.
Paperwork reviewed by The Artwork Newspaper present 15 completely different situations between December 1978 and Might 2025 wherein San Francisco Recreation and Park Division (Rec) officers referred to property administration firm BXP (and its predecessor organisations) as being answerable for the upkeep of Vaillancourt fountain and/or Embarcadero Plaza. BXP officers had been additionally discovered to have referred to their upkeep obligations in the identical paperwork.
Throughout an October 2024 assembly of San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Fee, the fee’s common supervisor Phil Ginsburg mentioned he had discussions with representatives from BXP “eight to 10 years” earlier than the Fee formalised its participation in a public-private partnership with the purpose of redeveloping the plaza.
The findings are vital as a result of they assist the claims of these looking for to protect Vaillancourt Fountain, particularly that Rec officers haven’t been fully clear as to their intent, nor their obligation in the direction of the sculptural fountain and Embarcadero Plaza. Rec officers argue the fountain and plaza are too dilapidated to be preserved, although they haven’t addressed why BXP—which in response to paperwork assessment by The Artwork Newspaper was answerable for no less than some upkeep obligations for the final 45 years—let it deteriorate so severely.
“We have now a long-standing wholesome partnership with BXP and Boston Properties,” Ginsburg mentioned throughout a 17 October 2024 assembly of the Recreation and Park Fee. “Essentially we share area at Embarcadero Plaza and now we have been capable of rely on them and depend on them so long as I’ve been on this job.”
Ginsburg, who held his put up for 16 years, introduced his resignation on 22 September. He didn’t reply to The Artwork Newspaper’s requests for remark.
Vaillancourt’s much-maligned 1971 fountain has not had water operating via it since June 2024 and has been fenced off from the general public since 9 June of this 12 months owing to alleged security and safety considerations.
Paperwork offered to The Artwork Newspaper by a supply who requested to stay nameless so as to share municipal supplies present that Rec had upkeep and restore agreements with BXP and its predecessor organisations courting again to no less than December 1978. The agreements stipulated that BXP—homeowners of the Embarcadero Heart workplace, lodge and retail advanced—can be answerable for sustaining components of Embarcadero Plaza and Vaillancourt Fountain in alternate for permitting the development of a spiral staircase descending into the plaza. The paperwork point out that the settlement was mentioned in memos, conferences and emails at common intervals between 1978 and 2025.
Disrepair subsequently demolition?
The present bodily state of the Vaillancourt Fountain has been cited by Rec as justification for its potential demolition. Town has not beforehand disclosed or acknowledged that BXP and its predecessor organisations have been answerable for the fountain and plaza’s upkeep for almost their total existence.
BXP has been main a public-private partnership to redevelop Embarcadero Plaza and demolish Vaillancourt Fountain. The corporate’s plan proposes the elimination of the fountain and mixing two separate public areas—Embarcadero Plaza and the adjoining Sue Bierman Park—right into a single multi-use area.
On 18 August, Ginsburg despatched a letter to the San Francisco Arts Fee (SFAC) to request the “formal deaccession of the Vaillancourt Fountain from the Civic Artwork Assortment and its elimination from Embarcadero Plaza”. This was step one required within the proposal to demolish the fountain, which is technically the property of SFAC. The deaccession request prompted the 96-year-old Québécois artist to ship the town a cease-and-desist letter.
Armand Vaillancourt, Vaillancourt Fountain, 1971 Photograph by Josh Mazgelis, through Flickr
Within the 29 August letter, Vaillancourt and his lawyer Sébastien Lormeau “demand that the town and all different events implicated within the redevelopment of Sue Bierman Park and Embarcadero Plaza instantly stop and desist from taking any steps in any respect which will endanger or injury the Vaillancourt Fountain”. The letter additional specifies that that is to incorporate “demolition, dismantlement or bodily modification of the work”.
SFAC is legally required to keep up the works it owns in response to its personal insurance policies and pointers. Whereas the fee’s director of communications Coma Te confirmed this authorized requirement, he provides that “there isn’t a devoted funding supply allotted for this particular objective”. In a press release to The Artwork Newspaper, Te says that assessments of the works within the Civic Arts Assortment are solely accomplished on an advert hoc foundation, however confirms that SFAC was conscious of the 54-year-old fountain’s varied mechanical and electrical system issues.
Requested whether or not SFAC was conscious that Rec had upkeep agreements with BXP and its predecessor organisations, Te says: “SFAC employees had been conscious, via historic reference in archived assembly minutes, that agreements might have existed, however weren’t conscious of settlement particulars as they had been between different exterior events and SFAC didn’t have copies of these agreements.”
Placing the cranes earlier than the bulldozers
BXP first circulated conceptual renderings of its proposed new park in July 2024 that didn’t embody the fountain. The renderings had been developed earlier than formal public session had occurred and earlier than the town publicly claimed that the fountain was in an irreparably poor state.
At a public session in July 2025 the place nearly all of attendees voiced assist for preserving Vaillancourt Fountain, Rec officers said that the monumental sculpture was too decrepit to be preserved, however stopped in need of confirming their place that it must be demolished. They demurred from options that the general public may increase funds to protect it.
On 19 September, a coalition of events despatched a letter to the town of San Francisco and its businesses concerned within the Embarcadero Plaza redevelopment challenge, demanding that Vaillancourt Fountain be retained and rehabilitated for “current and future residents and guests”. The coalition consists of the households of Vaillancourt and the panorama architect Lawrence Halprin, the California Backyard & Panorama Historical past Society, the Worldwide Council on Monuments and Websites’ worldwide scientific committee on Twentieth-century heritage, the Musée d’Artwork Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Heritage, the Cultural Panorama Basis, the Society of Architectural Historians, and each Docomomo (a non-profit dedicated to the examine and safety of Modernist structure) and its northern California chapter.
Jack McCarthy, a board member with Docomomo US’s northern California chapter, raised considerations that the town of San Francisco is just not dealing with the fountain situation in good religion. “In their very own phrases, the town believes Vaillancourt Fountain is just not a symbolic sculpture, however ‘a vital design problem within the Embarcadero Plaza and Sue Bierman Park challenge’ and ‘incompatible with the open garden and gathering areas envisioned within the new design’,” McCarthy tells The Artwork Newspaper in a press release.
An October 2024 e mail from a BXP consultant to a Rec employees member means that, no less than so far as BXP is worried, the event of the park is a accomplished deal and the corporate’s earlier upkeep obligations are moot. “Connected to the allow are a handful of upkeep obligations that we’ve carried out over time,” the e-mail reads. “As soon as we start growth of the brand new park, I feel it is sensible to change this allow to take away the assorted upkeep obligations (since they actually received’t apply).”
This e mail was despatched by BXP’s senior vice chairman Aaron Fenton to Lisa Bransten, listed as Rec’s director of partnerships. The e-mail was despatched on 16 October 2024, simply two weeks earlier than then-mayor of San Francisco London Breed launched laws to create a partnership between BXP, the town and several other businesses, with the said purpose of redeveloping the plaza per plans initially developed by BXP. Bransten didn’t reply to The Artwork Newspaper’s requests for remark. Fenton did reply, stating that questions must be directed to Rec.
In the end Erin Garcia, a vice-president on the public relations agency Berlin Rosen, responded to The Artwork Newspaper’s questions. Garcia says that though a memorandum of understanding is in place between BXP, Rec and different companions, “no formal plans have been accomplished or accredited to this point”. Garcia didn’t reply to follow-up questions.
5-decade partnership
The earliest recognized settlement between the town and the homeowners of the Embarcadero Heart, in response to paperwork offered by the nameless supply, is from 1978. In a decision handed on 14 December of that 12 months, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Fee allowed the San Francisco Redevelopment Company and the homeowners of Embarcadero Heart to enter right into a long-term settlement whereby the latter would tackle particular upkeep obligations in alternate for permitting them to assemble a staircase facilitating higher entry to the workplace, lodge and retail advanced from the plaza. The settlement specifies continued upkeep of Vaillancourt Fountain and its pumps.
The fountain has not functioned since June 2024, when—in response to Rec officers—the final of its 4 pumps failed. Rec subsequently determined to empty the fountain. There was no indication from Rec on the time that the choice can be everlasting. Later that month, Rec officers indicated that the pumps had been past their helpful life and would price $3m to exchange. The primary renderings of BXP’s proposal to redevelop Embarcadero Plaza—from which Vaillancourt Fountain was conspicuously absent—had been revealed lower than one month later.
“If one compares the November 2024 pre-agreement rendering with the July 2025 group assembly rendering, the predetermined nature of the designs for this renovation challenge turns into obvious,” says McCarthy of Docomomo.
Minutes from a Park Fee assembly on 8 November 1979 point out that Embarcadero Heart satisfactorily repaired the pumps and restored the plaza, per the earlier settlement. The minutes additional point out that “Embarcadero Heart has assumed the entire upkeep obligations of M. Justin Herman Plaza” and that the commissioners wished to specific their profound gratitude to Embarcadero Heart govt director James R. Bronkema for being the primary main company to “undertake a park” in San Francisco.
(Justin Herman Plaza is the earlier identify of Embarcadero Plaza, wherein Vaillancourt Fountain is probably the most outstanding characteristic. Herman was the manager director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Company from 1959 to 1971, however his ‘city renewal’ tasks resulted within the destruction of historic buildings in addition to the displacement of hundreds of residents, a lot of whom had been folks of color. The plaza’s identify was modified in 2017 after a petition collected greater than 14,000 signatures.)
The Embarcadero Heart’s duty to keep up Vaillancourt Fountain was reiterated on 15 September 1988. Assembly minutes point out the assistant superintendent of neighbourhood parks and squares on the time, Ron DeLeon, said that“the division has an settlement with Embarcadero Heart, Ltd, to function and preserve the Vallancourt [sic] Fountain at Justin Herman Plaza”.
That assertion was made throughout a dialogue about whether or not or not the town ought to permit the development of cyclone fencing across the air flow tower and pump room to maintain out people who find themselves unhoused. Town agreed to the proposal. The presence of individuals experiencing homeless round Vaillancourt Fountain in recent times has been cited as one of many causes it must be demolished.
A doc offered to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in September 2010 reiterates Boston Properties’ upkeep obligations for the plaza. (Boston Properties finalised its acquisition of the Embarcadero Heart in 1999 and renamed itself BXP in 2024.)
These pre-existing and repeatedly reaffirmed upkeep obligations weren’t talked about in any of the supplies associated to the March 2025 settlement between Rec, BXP, the Downtown San Francisco Partnership and the Workplace of Financial and Workforce Growth that authorised their collaboration “concerning potential enhancements and renovations at Embarcadero Plaza and Sue Bierman Park”. Officers from Rec didn’t disclose BXP’s prior upkeep obligations at public consultations wherein they argued the fountain was too pricey to protect.
The settlement from March 2025 stipulates that Rec is authorised to obtain money and in-kind grants from BXP of $2.5m for design and challenge administration providers, in addition to as much as $10m in money or grants from both BXP or the Downtown San Francisco Partnership.
Repairs not saved up
Armand Vaillancourt, Vaillancourt Fountain, 1971 Photograph by Mike Liu, through Flickr
The nameless supply who offered The Artwork Newspaper with the preliminary file of public paperwork—together with a memo from 1984, a letter from 1988, an e mail from 2000 and a allow from 2001—has since offered a number of further and newer paperwork that every one seem to verify BXP (and its predecessors) had upkeep obligations to make sure the maintenance of the plaza and fountain.
A 2012 doc ready by San Francisco’s Civil Grand Jury entitled “The place There’s Smoke: The necessity to strengthen the Artwork Fee’s stewardship of San Francisco’s cultural legacy”, states: “There is no such thing as a present memorandum of understanding between Rec & Park and SFAC for using Justin Herman Plaza, which is beneath Rec & Park’s area.” The identical doc provides: “A complicating issue is {that a} host of private and non-private entities handle the Embarcadero and adjoining public areas. Rec & Park, the San Francisco Port Fee, the Division of Public Works, the Actual Property Division and Boston Properties all declare pursuits in Justin Herman Plaza and its surrounds.”
In a Might 2016 assembly of SFAC’s Avenue Artists Committee, the road artists programme’s director Howard Lazar corrects a press release made by an SFAC commissioner about who’s answerable for the plaza, stating: “Justin Herman Plaza is beneath Rec and Park and administered by Boston Properties.”
One other doc from September 2020 reiterates that Embarcadero Plaza has a “shared jurisdiction”, itemizing Boston Properties together with SFAC and Rec as among the many many companies, departments and metropolis businesses with a stake within the plaza. And a 2025 e mail from Rec’s director of operations Eric Andersen to challenge supervisor Eoanna Harrison Goodwin states Andersen’s perception that Boston Properties was accountable for dealing with the fountain’s cleansing.
“This can be a basic misunderstanding of the agreements associated to Embarcadero Plaza and the Vaillancourt Fountain,” Tamara Aparton , Rec’s deputy director of communications and public affairs, tells The Artwork Newspaper in an emailed assertion. “BXP and its predecessors had been by no means answerable for the fountain’s long-term repairs.”
Aparton included 5 images of pages of a decision that appeared to point an settlement drafted in 1979, although components weren’t crammed out, and just one signature was seen. The doc appeared to verify that Embarcadero Heart can be answerable for plaza and fountain upkeep duties for as much as 30 months, throughout which period they might undertake further development duties that resulted in an occupation of a portion of the plaza. Aparton additionally claimed that the permits “expired many years in the past” and that they didn’t “set up ongoing fountain obligations”.
Aparton didn’t deal with The Artwork Newspaper’s questions on a number of situations over the following many years wherein officers from Rec and BXP referred to the corporate’s apparently ongoing upkeep obligations. She did say that “Rec and Park has periodically maintained [the fountain’s] inner mechanical methods” however didn’t reply to a follow-up query about how the fountain got here to be in an allegedly irreparably decrepit state if Rec was no less than partly answerable for sustaining it.
Evaluation says there may be nonetheless time for repairs
Aparton additionally didn’t deal with how Rec officers concluded that the fountain and plaza must be demolished when a circumstances evaluation ready for Rec earlier this 12 months concluded that “the fountain total doesn’t seem to have but deteriorated past restore” and that “quite a lot of remedy approaches could also be explored” to restore and safeguard the fountain.
Docomomo’s Jack McCarthy says that Embarcadero Plaza has already been recognised as a historic useful resource, and documentation in Rec’s possession states that Vaillancourt Fountain can be an individually eligible historic useful resource.
“The worth of those two components—plaza and sculpture—is multi-fold,” McCarthy says. He enumerates “their respective and collaborative designs by famend designers, their place within the cultural historical past of San Francisco and their visibility on the nationwide and worldwide stage as a discussion board of civic expression and the birthplace of contemporary road skateboarding”.
McCarthy argues that whether or not the fountain and plaza have worth shouldn’t be the main target of debate given this has already been established. As a substitute, he says, the issue lies with how San Francisco manages, recognises and maintains its property. He reiterated that the circumstances evaluation doc ready for Rec and utilized by the division to make its case that Vaillancourt Fountain is a menace to public security and is not viable as a useful or protected public asset, really states that it “doesn’t seem to have but deteriorated past restore”.
“As a substitute of releasing this report and permitting for group involvement and dialogue in regards to the vary of choices which are obtainable, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Division constantly asserts that the one possibility is demolition,” McCarthy says. “This isn’t true.”
