San Francisco's Recreation and Parks Commission is expected to sign off Thursday on a concept plan for a $40 million overhaul of the Embarcadero waterfront plaza — and the city's $643 million budget deficit has nothing to do with why it's happening.

The project, more than a year in the making, would transform the five-acre former Vaillancourt Fountain site into a public lawn, stage pavilion, walking paths, dog park, and fitness area. But the louder question — how a broke city justifies a $40 million park — turns out to have a relatively clean answer: the money was already spoken for, by voters, in a way that can't be redirected to plug budget holes. The harder story is what's underneath the pavement.

The Embarcadero Plaza redesign concept goes before the city's Rec and Parks Commission on Thursday — a formal milestone for a project that has been assembling its financing piece by piece for over a year.

City Supervisor Danny Sauter told ABC7 the roughly $18 million in public funds expected from the city comes from a 2024 voter-approved bond earmarked for downtown parks investment. "It's not money that we can use for other uses," Sauter said. "It's coming directly from the voters who said that they wanted to put money towards this sort of thing in downtown."

That distinction matters in a city facing a projected $643 million deficit. General fund dollars are the ones that pit parks against shelters, road repaving against public safety staffing. Bond proceeds designated for specific capital uses are a different ledger — and redirecting them to close an operating shortfall would require either legal gymnastics or a second ballot measure.

The remaining roughly $22 million is being assembled through a public-private structure. The developer BXP — which owns the neighboring Embarcadero Center, where roughly 30 percent of ground-floor retail units currently sit vacant — has agreed to cover the design costs outright. Robbie Silver, president and CEO of the Downtown San Francisco Partnership, described BXP's buy-in as a meaningful signal: "We are very thankful to have Bxp as a developer who said, hey, we are going to pay for the design of this park, Rec and Park to adopt this as a project."

Silver said the partnership has already raised $2 million in private contributions toward the capital campaign. The remaining gap would presumably be covered by a combination of additional philanthropy and public sources — though no detailed funding plan has been made public ahead of Thursday's vote.

Silver did not soften his characterization of the current site. "Right now, it is arguably the most underutilized space in downtown and maybe even our city," he told ABC7. "There's not a lot of activity happening here. It's not accessible. And it's not attractive."

That assessment is echoed by what Rec and Parks General Manager Sarah Madland described as a hidden infrastructure problem. The plaza — officially named Sue Bierman Park — has chronic drainage issues that officials say trace back to old freeway support structures still embedded in the ground from a highway demolished decades ago. "There are actually some footings from the old freeway underneath that park," Madland said. "The support structures of the freeway." Removing them and regrading the site are expected to make up a significant share of the actual construction cost, meaning this is less a cosmetic renovation than a belated infrastructure repair with a park built on top.

If Thursday's concept approval moves forward as expected, the city projects construction could begin by the end of 2026, with roughly a year of work to complete the transformation. The site is now an open lot following the $4 million removal of the Vaillancourt Fountain, which was hauled off in May after decades of controversy.

The Dissent has covered the plaza redesign process since April, including the design evolution and the fountain's removal. The key development Thursday is the formal institutional sign-off that puts the project on a construction timeline — and triggers the next phase of fundraising pressure to close the remaining financing gap.