"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." Councilmember Eileen Burke said that in late February, when the Town Council voted unanimously to lease back the concrete platform over San Anselmo Creek, according to the Marin Independent Journal. At the time, the plan was a spring reopening.
Eight months later the fence is still up. In May the structure under the plaza went from scheduled for removal to staying put, and a platform that stays needs a real design, real structural work and a real budget. All three are now on the same calendar as the larger Creek Park rebuild. That rebuild is expected to start construction in late spring 2027.
A lease written for a structure that was supposed to go away
The platform sits on top of Building Bridge 2, which the Town's staff report places at 632-636 San Anselmo Avenue. The Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District owns it. For most of the past seven years, everyone planning the space assumed BB2 would come out. Here is how the timeline looks in the Town's own August 11 staff report:
- June 25, 2019. After a design competition, the Council selects RHAA Landscape Architects to design the Reimagine Creek Park project.
- 2020. During the pandemic, the Town and the District sign a first lease so the public can use the platform while removal planning continues.
- November 23, 2021. RHAA presents 60% conceptual drawings. The Council authorizes schematic drawings so park construction can be coordinated with the removal of BB2.
- September 2022. The District ends the 2020 lease after a report suggests the structure could be unstable. Later engineering analysis and strain-gauge monitoring show no further movement.
- February 24, 2026. The Council approves a new lease for public pedestrian use.
- May 5, 2026. The District Board of Supervisors cancels the BB2 removal project.
Step six changed what the lease means. Its base term is three years, but it says that if removal does not go ahead, the Town's use continues until either party ends it or they sign a new agreement. Since the May cancellation, that open-ended clause is the one that applies. The space everyone treated as temporary now has no end date.
What the engineers found, and why the repair moved to 2027
Before the vote in February, then-Public Works Director Sean Condry told the Council that staff had "removed probably 100,000 pounds of dead load from the structure," the Marin Independent Journal reported. The paper described the bridge under the plaza as century-old. The lease still required the platform to be structurally sound before anyone could use it. The Town hired a structural engineering consultant, who found that parts of the structure needed reinforcement first. The Town then brought in Miller Pacific Engineering to draw up a plan for stabilizing the platform.
That finding came just before summer. On June 17 the County announced that the plaza would stay fenced and would not open for the start of Live on the Avenue. In the County's release, Mayor Steve Burdo said safety came before opening for the season.
Then came the decision that explains this fall. Town staff chose to do the structural repairs at the same time as the larger Creek Park Project, rather than as a separate early job, "to allow for less disruption to the public and the efficiency of project implementation." So the platform now reopens when the park gets built, and the park has its own schedule.
Option A, in seats and tables
With a permanent platform to design for, the Town went back to RHAA. On June 23 the Council approved an agreement with an anonymous private donor to pay for conceptual design of the plaza. RHAA produced three concepts. A public meeting followed on August 4, and on August 7 the team set up at Live on the Avenue to get feedback in person. Staff dropped the third option, a Town Green, after reviewing viability, maintenance and expected use. The other two went to the Council:
| Option A: Curvilinear Terrace | Option B: Garden Path | |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Multiple seating terraces | Switchback ramps, more planting |
| Capacity | About 150 to 160 people | About 130 to 140 people |
| Shared by both | Street-level plaza with eight-person and bistro tables, deck and picnic seating kept under the redwoods, a restroom behind the upper deck, two San Anselmo Avenue parking spaces removed |
At its special meeting, the Council unanimously backed Option A, the curvilinear terraces, according to the Town's August 17 notice. Compare that with Burke's wood chips and picnic tables from February. The fix the Town was ready to make in the spring was about as small as it gets. What it is building now has terraced seating for roughly 150 people, a permanent restroom, and a street-level edge that gives up two parking spaces on the Avenue.
Supervisor Brian Colbert, who used to sit on the Town Council, gave the reason the Town keeps pushing in the same February Marin Independent Journal story:
"When Creek Park closed, it left a real hole in the heart of downtown San Anselmo and we could feel the absence."
Who pays for which part
Splitting the cost follows the same split as the structure itself. Under the partnership described in the August 19 joint release from the County and the Town, the Town pays for the plaza improvements on top of BB2. It also manages the rehabilitation and construction and awards the construction contract. The District, as owner, plans to fund the structural repairs, pending a final funding agreement approved by both the District Board of Supervisors and the Town Council. That money is expected to come from the County's general fund, not the Flood Control Zone 9 funds.
Here is the part that matters for timing. As of the August release, nobody knew what the structural work would cost, because the Town was still developing the rehabilitation project. Once there is a number, County staff expects to bring a funding recommendation to the Board in early 2027. The Town's next steps line up with that. It plans to finish construction drawings for the whole Creek Park project this fall, and it expects construction to start in late spring 2027. Each step waits on the one before it. Drawings produce a cost, the cost becomes a funding vote, and the vote opens a construction season. Kerrie P. McHugh chairs the Reimagine Creek Park Community Advisory Committee, the volunteer group the Council created in 2019. In the August release she called the agreement "an exciting and meaningful step forward." The release also says the plaza stays closed until rehabilitation is finished and qualified professionals confirm it can safely handle its intended use.
Downtown around the fence this fall
This summer showed that the Avenue can work around the gap. Live on the Avenue ran free Friday and Saturday evenings from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., starting June 20 and running through mid-September. The street was closed to traffic, and the music came from the Creek Park Amphitheater and Town Hall Plaza stages and spilled into nearby restaurants, according to the MarinArts listing. The amphitheater sits below the fenced deck. It kept working all season, and it is where the people designing the new plaza came to collect opinions.
The same blocks carry the season forward from here. The community calendar at Creekside Pizza & Taproom lists the Pumpkin Ride at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 30. It also lists a Dia de Muertos celebration at Imagination Park at 1 p.m. on Sunday, November 1, with an after-party at Taco Jane's, where a community honor altar is open now for anyone who wants to add to it. Creekside's own downtown happy hour starts at 4 p.m. The same calendar puts a Town Holiday Tree Lighting and Town Festival on December 5. Check the Town's own announcements for the location and details as that date gets closer.
None of these events need the platform, and the plan going forward assumes they won't have it for a while yet. The deck above the creek will likely stay fenced through this winter and into the spring. The next public milestones to watch are the finished construction drawings, the cost estimate they produce, and the County's funding vote in early 2027.
Lisa and the team at Smith & Co. will be watching for those drawings and that vote, along with everything else changing on San Anselmo Avenue. If you'd like to talk through what a rebuilt Creek Park could mean for your corner of town, schedule a free consultation.
