New Mission Bay Kids’ Park Opens Friday!

San Francisco will get two new parks in Mission Bay very soon: Mission Bay

~~Playground~~ Kids’ Park, and Mariposa Park. Tomorrow the playground designed for residents living in Mission Bay ~~Kids Playground~~ will open thanks to expedited work that was approved by the Board of Supervisors earlier in June.

Mission Bay Kids’ Park Playground with playground OPENING July 1, 2016!!!!!

I kid you not. SF Gate and an e-mail to Mission Bay residents from Sarah Davis, the godmother of the playground – who’s been waiting over a decade for the park to come to be AND open sent out a newsletter saying the Mission Bay Kids’ Park ~~Playground~~ will open July 1, 2016.

Willow huts at Mission Bay Kids/ Park. Image: RHAA

View from a nearby housing development overlooking the playground. Image: Urban Life Signs/Brian Stokle

Mission Bay Kids’ Park

The playground appeared to be completed with grass growing, playground equipment shining in a multitude of colors, and new nature huts of basking in the San Francisco sun, over a year ago. Sadly the entire playground has been fenced off for months. The reason is a complex procedural thing of transferring private redeveloped land over to the city. You can learn more about that here and here. Initially it was due to the fact that the area surrounding it is a massive construction site.

Mariposa Park, adjacent to the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, is likely to open soon as well, but there is less information on its status.

My daughter, 3-years old at the time in 2015, looking at the playground behind the fence.

I’m just thankful my four-year old daughter will be able to play at this playground that looks positively awesome.

The plan calls for the park space to be made mostly up of the playground itself, plus some picnic table areas beside a small lawn. The most intriguing, or unusual features are the willow huts. The playground went through two rounds of design processes and outreach. Kelley Kahn, a senior project planner with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency who worked on Mission Bay, indicated that during the second outreach phase in 2010, more residents were already living in Mission Bay and consequently could provide input as actual residents of the neighborhood. Earlier design outreach was made before any residential buildings even existed in the new neighborhood.