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Our Work: Projects

Let’sPlaySF!

Let’sPlaySF! is a partnership between the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department and SF Parks Alliance to transform 13 of San Francisco’s most timeworn playgrounds into dynamic hubs for creativity and family life.

All children deserve a safe, imaginative place to play outside. The renovated Let’sPlaySF! playgrounds will change the lives of the 20,000 children who live within a 10 minute walk of these playgrounds – and thousands of others – by giving them modern, safe play spaces where their brains and bodies can thrive.

Timeline: To be completed in 2025

Directions

Neighborhood

Excelsior
Haight Ashbury
Ingleside
Inner Sunset
Merced
Mission
North Beach
North of the Panhandle (NOPA)
Oceanview
Outer Richmond
Portola
Sunset/Parkside
Tenderloin
Visitacion Valley
Western Addition

Address

San Francisco, CA

Contact

Email

Panhandle Playground

Status: Completed in fall 2019
Location: Ashbury Street & Oak Street

Let’sPlaySF! partners and landscape architecture consultant RHAA Landscape Architecture and Planning, spent nine months collecting community input for the new design of this playground. The partners held three community workshops, presented at two neighborhood association meetings, and convened two focus groups with adults and two groups with elementary school children, ensuring that anyone who wanted to contribute to the conversation had a chance to do so. 

The playground is fully accessible and designed for diverse types of play and interaction. It was designed to fully take advantage of the play space. Notably, the design was inspired by the natural and cultural environment of San Francisco.

Washington Square Playground

Status: Completed winter 2019
Location: Filbert Street & Stockton Street

After months of community outreach and construction, Washington Square Park Playground reopened in January of 2019. The playground now features new play equipment, new safety surfacing with undulating topography, accessibility upgrades, improved paving and drainage systems, planting and irrigation, a new perimeter wall and playful art elements, and removal of the Filbert Street stairway to provide a safer, naturally contained space.

Sergeant John Macaulay Playground

Status: Completed summer 2020
Location: O’Farrell Street & Larkin Street

The landscape architecture firm Miller Company worked with Let’sPlaySF! Partners to create a safe, multi-generational park with a nature-inspired theme. Improvements include: a playground that has unique custom-built structures, areas for parents and grandparents to gather, additional seating, and an elevated area at the back to increase visibility and variation in the terrain. Intense involvement by community groups – including La Voz Latina, Faithful Fools, and Bay Area Women & Children Center – along with residents of the Little Saigon neighborhood provided important insight.

Merced Heights Playground

Status: Completed summer 2020
Location: 801 Shields Street

Located in the Oceanview-Merced Heights-Ingleside (OMI) neighborhood, the $5.3 million renovation of Merced Heights Playground features entirely new equipment, including a massive timber play structure, climbers, a spinner, and a bowl swing. Other upgrades include lighting, fencing, sport courts, the clubhouse, and ADA improvements.

Alice Chalmers Playground

Status: Completed summer 2020
Location: 670 Brunswick Street

The design of this new playground, created by Groundworks Office, references the rocky coastline of California, giving children a tactile and active play experience. The playground combines traditional play equipment with custom designed play features, including climbing stones and a large fort structure.. 

The overall scope of the project included renovation of the children’s play area with new play equipment for tot and school age children, new safety surfacing, improvements to the main entrance to create an accessible, inviting, and welcoming park experience, accessibility improvements to the surrounding playground pathways and restrooms, tree wells with integrated platform seating, new landscaping, and new picnic tables and flexible seating.

West Portal Playground

Status: Completed summer 2020
Location: West Portal Recreation Center

The West Portal Playground is a 1.9-acre park that is a by-product of the West Portal rail station, which opened in 1918. The playground’s renovations include new, vibrant and inclusive play equipment and accessible surfacing, in addition to various amenity upgrades to the park, including a nature nook for children, as well as new planting, seating and paving.

Redwood Grove Playground

Status: Completed fall 2020
Location: 200 John F. Shelley Drive

This playground is located at the Group Picnic site in McLaren Park, located on John F. Shelley Drive and adjacent to the Excelsior and Portola neighborhoods. The overall design (by CMG Landscape Architects) reflects the community’s desires to have a more natural feel, and is situated between the two picnic areas to capitalize on the park’s hilly topography. A slide descends from the top of the playground towards the central lawn. Natural elements such as boulders, timbers, and native plantings are incorporated into the playground, and a large net structure allows children to climb to amazing views of the city. 

Additional improvements to the site include upgrades to the picnic areas, pathways, and lawn, as well as the addition of a loading zone.

Golden Gate Heights Park Playground

Status: Completed summer 2021
Location: 12th Avenue and Rockridge Drive

This playground’s new design was inspired by the park’s existing landscape and features a climbing wall, slide, rolling arches and spring disc steps. The most dramatic new play element includes a large spiral tower that invites children to experience climbing in a forest setting that is defined by Monterey Pines and Cypresses. The design also features a basket swing and small slide. As additional accessories to the tower, there are slide rails, and monkey bars.

Juri Commons Playground

Status: Completed fall 2021
Location: 1343 Guerrero Street

This space is the green remnant of a railroad that ran through the city over 150 years ago. This former land use accounts for the park’s linear shape and has protected the site from further development. To celebrate this history, a portion of the primary path through the park is designed to represent the railway experience. 

Let’sPlaySF! partners worked closely with the community – including Juri Commoners, a group dedicated to the park – to deliver a complete project that includes a new children’s play area, adult fitness equipment, accessible paths, new planting and irrigation, new fencing and signage, and improved seating.

Herz Playground

Status: Completed summer 2023
Location: 1701 Visitacion Avenue

The $3.38 million renovation of Herz playground includes two play areas, each geared toward different age groups. The play area geared towards younger children includes a new play structure with slides and activity panels, toddler swings, a bobble rider, and harmony flower chimes for outdoor musical play. The play area for older kids features steel drums, a track ride, a play tower with two slides, and a climbing wall. The playground’s colors were inspired by the green of McLaren Park’s grass, the orange of the California poppy, and the bright blue of the adjacent clubhouse mural.

The renovation project also included replacing deteriorated concrete walkways and walls with new paths, benches, and picnic tables, as well as adding a drinking fountain. The clubhouse bathroom has been upgraded and new landscaping, including boulders, highlight the park’s natural setting.

Richmond Playground

Status: Completed summer 2024
Location: 18th Avenue and Lake Street

The Richmond Playground is a beloved, long-standing neighborhood play space that has served the surrounding community for over 100 years! In fall of 2019, Let’sPlaySF! Partners and MIG Landscape Architects began the design and community engagement process of renovating this well-loved community space. 

The new playground includes upgrades and accessibility improvements to the public restrooms, accessibility improvements at park entrances, placemaking improvements with new planting, paving, seating and other furnishings, and a complete renovation of the children’s play area with new surfacing and equipment for both the toddler and school aged children’s play areas. 

Sigmund Stern

Status: Anticipated completion in 2025
Location: 630 Sloat Boulevard

Buchanan Street Mall Playground

Status: Anticipated completion in 2025
Location: Buchanan & Golden Gate Avenue

This playground redesign is part of a larger planning effort, led by the Trust for Public Land, to redesign all 5 blocks of the Buchanan Street Mall. 
Concept plans have been approved for this playground.

  • These playgrounds were selected by a citizen task force based on presence of unhealthy chemicals in playground wood, with priority given to playgrounds in low-income neighborhoods dense with children. Learn more about the selection process through this Final Task Force Report.

  • Public funds, combined with contributions from generous donors, will ensure that this initiative transforms all 13 playgrounds by the end of 2025. With your help, we hit our campaign goal in 2022, funding 13 new playgrounds across San Francisco!