Thanks to community members who have been keeping an eye on the park and on construction progress and reaching out to the Rec and Park team with questions and concerns.
A majority of inquiries we’ve received are in the following two categories:
- Why has construction progress slowed down so much?
- How is the health of trees? Are they receiving enough water?
The health of the trees at Esprit is of vital importance to us. For several years, we have had a consulting arborist on the project team. The arborist has provided invaluable support, including:
- Making regular field visits and assessing the health and structural condition of the trees
- Providing field verification of trees to be removed
- Reviewing plans and making comments that have been integrated into the renovation design
- Overseeing pruning work and tree protection measures by contractor
- Consulting on the trenching alignment to minimize disturbance to roots
A key reason for our recent slowdown in construction was because the Contractor encountered more networks of tree roots during excavation than expected and flagged this for the project team. We opted to slow down excavation work to ensure that the Contractor had appropriate support to minimize disturbance to these root systems.
This coincided with the unusually late Spring rains ending and then hot, dry weather in the early summer. During the summer, our consulting arborist flagged that some trees preserved on site were not being adequately watered. This is due to a combination of factors, including low water pressure at the site.
Since that time, our full project team, including consulting arborist, landscape architect, Rec and Park Operations, and construction management team have been working with the contractor and landscape subcontractor to significantly increase their watering routines and we continue to monitor the success of those efforts. To assist these watering efforts, we have secured an additional source of water and will soon be installing a new pump to improve water pressure onsite.
The landscape subcontractor has almost finished trenching work for the irrigation mainline as well as the domestic water line that will serve the two new drinking fountains / water bottle fillers in the park. During trenching, the landscape subcontractor noticed and repaired some damaged drain lines, which will improve the park’s drainage.
By next week, you should start to see more visible signs that the pace of construction is picking up. Please note that after construction finishes, there will be a 90-day establishment period for the lawns and other new plantings before we can welcome people and dogs back to the park. But even with this plant establishment period, we are on pace for the park to re-open to the public by late 2023 or early 2024. We appreciate your ongoing support, and please stay tuned for more updates.
For questions, or to be added to our email list for project dates, please contact the project manager: Melinda Sullivan, melinda.sullivan@sfgov.org, 628-652-6648.
Images: Watering Truck (July 2023); Watering Redwoods via sprinkler (July 2023); Trenching of irrigation mainline (August 2023); Wetting down boardwalk (May 2023).