Rec & Park Finds Contractor To Rebuild Koret PlaygroundThe damaged playscape immediately after the fire. | Photo: I.X.P./Hoodline Tipline
Camden Avery
Published on October 12, 2017

Just over three months after an unknown arsonist torched the historic Koret Children's Quarter Playground, plans are in the pipeline to rebuild one of the nation's oldest playgrounds.

Connie Chan, SF Rec & Park spokesperson, confirmed this week that after a round of bids, the agency is in the contract process with a prospective builder to put the playground back into service.

At the time, the incident—which filled the Upper Haight and Cole Valley with the smell of melting plastic, and eliminated one of the neighborhoods' best public playgrounds—so incensed neighbors that the San Francisco Parks Alliance initiated a fundraiser to help defray the estimated $1 million repair cost.

Chan said a repair timeline will be finalized once Rec & Park is through the contract process.

This means that Koret will join the Panhandle Playground—through very different means—as the other local playground getting a major overhaul in the coming months.

The Panhandle Playground, an estimated $3.2 million project, will commence early next year; planning and funding for the project took about three years.