"I – we the community – did not want another summer to go by with the heart of San Anselmo fenced off." Supervisor Brian Colbert said that in late February, when the Town Council voted unanimously to lease the concrete plaza over San Anselmo Creek back from the county for $1 a month, according to the Marin Independent Journal.
Another summer went by with the fence still up. If you walked to Live on the Avenue this year, you stood next to it.
The plaza does have a future now. The council picked a design in August, and the county said soon after that it intends to pay for the structural repairs. The plan for the plaza also changed shape this year. In March the plan was a quick reopening. Now the plaza is part of the full Creek Park rebuild, and the town plans to do the structural repairs while that larger project is under construction. The next time the plaza opens, it will most likely open as the new park.
The quick version almost happened
The reopening that was supposed to happen this spring was modest on purpose. Councilmember Eileen Burke described the pandemic-era version of the space to the IJ this way: "It's amazing that all we did to make that a place that the community wanted was throw out some wood chips and put in some picnic tables."
For a while it looked like the town could simply go back to that. County flood control officials had closed the plaza in 2022 over concerns that the century-old bridge underneath, known as Building Bridge 2, might be unstable. Building Bridge 2 had been slated for removal as part of the long-running flood control program, but federal officials held up that project, and in late January the county's Flood Zone 9 Advisory Board said it was unlikely to go forward. Once removal was off the table, the town negotiated a three-year lease that renews automatically, barring unforeseen developments.
Town staff had already taken weight off the structure. Public Works Director Sean Condry told the council the town had "removed probably 100,000 pounds of dead load," and said he didn't think there was "too much of a worry." The lease still came with one condition. Public use could resume only after a licensed structural engineering consultant confirmed the platform could safely handle what the town had in mind.
June changed the order of everything
On June 17, three days before Live on the Avenue opened, the town and the Marin County Flood Control District put out a joint release saying the plaza would stay closed. The consultant's evaluation of the bridge's substructure found that "repairs and reinforcement will be needed before the space can safely be opened to the public."
"We know this news will be disappointing to many residents, businesses, and others who have been looking forward to seeing this space reopen after being closed for so long." Mayor Steve Burdo, in the June 17 release
Live on the Avenue ran its Friday and Saturday evenings from June 20 into mid-September with the plaza fenced off. The release gave no repair cost and no schedule. It said only that more information would follow once the scope and next steps were confirmed.
The inspection meant the plaza now needed real construction before anyone could use it, and if a crew is going to be working on the bridge anyway, it makes sense to plan that work alongside the park design the town had been developing since 2019.
August folded the plaza into the park
That is what happened in August. At a special meeting, the council unanimously chose the "curvilinear terrace" concept from RHAA Landscape Architects, a Mill Valley firm, over a "garden path" option, according to the Marin IJ's account. The terraces would turn the cement plaza into a series of levels with pedestrian paths, shaded seating, stone walls, wooden decks and greenery, sloping gently uphill to the redwood grove on the park's western edge. RHAA dropped a third "town green" idea because of concerns about putting soil or artificial turf on top of the bridge.
The staff report put the link in writing. "Town staff is working to complete the structural improvements at the same time the larger Creek Park Project is constructed," the IJ quoted it as saying. Town Manager Dave Donery said all the work could be done by early 2028. "This is obviously pending successful fundraising," he added.
Pat Townsley, who owns two restaurants next to the plaza, pushed back on the idea that this was all new. "This is an overlay on a project that was right there at the cusp until everything fell apart at the county and FEMA level," he said. The history supports him. The town hired RHAA after a 2019 design competition, and by 2021 the firm's plans already assumed Building Bridge 2 would come out. The terrace design adapts that earlier work to a bridge that is now staying.
The questions at the meeting were about running a bigger park. Council members asked who would maintain it, whether it would be accessible enough, how the redwood roots would be protected and how to keep rodents out if people ate there. Burke said her one real concern was parking spaces, "which I don't think we should lose." The meeting ended with the council approving a donation agreement for the next phase. A donor who hasn't been publicly named had already covered RHAA's $83,000 fee to revise the plans.
Who pays for what
Three days later the county answered the question that had been hanging over the bridge since 2022. In a joint release dated August 19, the Flood Control District said it intends to fund the structural repairs to Building Bridge 2, which it owns. The town will pay for the plaza improvements that go on top and will manage the construction contract. The county expects the repair money to come from its general fund, not from Flood Control Zone 9 funds.
The repair cost still isn't known, because the town is still developing the rehabilitation project. Once there is a number, county staff expect to bring a cooperative funding agreement to the Board of Supervisors in early 2027. The Town Council also has to approve it.
The park itself is a separate budget. When the council approved a five-year, $20 million capital improvement plan in September, Councilmember Yoav Schlesinger pointed out what was missing, the IJ reported. "We might be spending $200,000 for a design for what's going to be a $4 million investment," he said. "But this $4 million potential investment is not represented here in this plan." Finance Director Jeff Zuba said future updates would include that kind of forecasting.
For comparison, the plan the council did approve spreads $20 million over five years for everything the town maintains. Streets make up just over 54% of it, and about 40% of the total is covered by the 1-cent sales tax voters passed in 2022. A $4 million park would be a large project next to that budget, and that is why the donor and fundraising matter so much to the early-2028 date.
The order things now have to happen in
Putting the four 2026 announcements together, the path from here looks like this:
- Price the repairs. The town finishes developing the rehabilitation project so the structural work has a cost.
- Approve the funding agreement. County staff bring it to the Board of Supervisors, expected in early 2027, and the Town Council signs off too.
- Finish the design. RHAA comes back with more detailed engineering studies and architectural plans for the terraces. No date has been announced.
- Raise the money. Donery's early-2028 target depends on fundraising for the park portion.
- Build both at once. The structural repairs and the park construction go ahead together, with the town managing the contract.
None of the public statements so far gives a date to reopen the plaza in its current form before all this. Burdo said in June that the town remains "committed to reopening the plaza as soon as possible," and the county's August release says the plaza stays closed until the rehabilitation is complete and the space is confirmed safe.
Some things are still open, and they will likely shape the next round of news:
- What the structural repairs will cost, which the county says it can't estimate until the rehabilitation project is further along
- Who the donor behind the $83,000 redesign is
- Whether a public fundraising campaign for the terraces will launch, and when
- How the final design handles the parking spaces several speakers asked the council to keep
The first real date on the calendar is the county funding recommendation in early 2027. Until then, the town's Reimagine Creek Park project page is the official place to watch, and the redwood side of Creek Park stays where it has always been, just off San Anselmo Avenue. For more on how downtown's calendar fits together, our posts on San Anselmo's three back-to-back fall festivals and the restaurants opening on San Anselmo Avenue cover what's happening on the same few blocks.
A rebuilt Creek Park would change the block most people think of as downtown San Anselmo. If you own a home in town and want to talk through how projects like this fit into your own plans, John Hendricks is glad to sit down with you. Schedule a local market consultation and we can go over what's happening around your part of San Anselmo.
