Walk down Laurel Street this month and you will hit orange construction fencing where Harrington Park used to be, and no blue man. The "Balancing Act" statue that has quietly juggled its way through decades of downtown photos is gone from its usual spot. If you have lived here a while, you have probably assumed the same thing everyone else assumes: once the fencing comes down, downtown San Carlos is finished. New plaza, new energy, done.
That is not quite what is happening. What is under construction right now is Harrington Park, and only Harrington Park. The bigger vision, the one with a car-free 700 block and a water feature and a promenade lined with trees, is a separate, second phase that the city has not funded yet. When the current fencing comes down in early 2027, you will have a nicer park. You will not yet have the downtown people are picturing when they talk about this project.
Where the Blue Man Actually Went
The statue did not disappear. It moved to the northern end of the 700 block of Laurel Street, near the intersection with Cherry Street, where it will stay while Harrington Park at 753 Laurel Street gets rebuilt around it. The city closed the park briefly on April 1 to remove planters, benches, and signage, reopened it for a few days, then shut it down for good on April 6 when construction fencing went up. Four months later, that fencing is still there, and it will be for a while.
The donor bricks scattered through the old park are being kept too, worked into the new design rather than poured over. That detail matters more than it sounds. A lot of downtown makeovers erase the small civic markers that longtime residents actually notice. This one is trying not to.
What's Actually Being Built In There
The plans for Harrington Park itself are specific: a multi-purpose plaza for gatherings, a new building holding two public restrooms and a handwashing station, a raingarden, a new grove of shade trees, and a mass timber pavilion extending over the restroom building. Work runs 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and the city's target for finishing is early 2027, roughly six months from now.
None of that is a small project. But it is also, functionally, a restroom building and a shaded seating area. It is not the pedestrian plaza, the promenade, or the water feature that the renderings for downtown have been showing residents for the past three years.
The Parking Swap Nobody Mentioned Out Loud
Here is a detail that got buried in the announcements: the four short-term parking spaces in the alley behind Harrington Park are gone, and they are not coming back as parking. They are being converted into a drop-off and loading zone instead. If you used to duck into that alley for a quick spot near Laurel Street, that option is off the table for the duration of construction, and possibly after.
Construction vehicles are routed through the alley behind Laurel Street, entering and exiting via Cherry and Olive, specifically so they stay off Laurel itself and customer access to storefronts is not blocked. There was also a separate two-week stretch of work in Cowgill Alley, directly behind the park, that started May 22 with flaggers on site managing traffic, though alley access from Cherry and Olive stayed open throughout.
Who's Actually Absorbing This Right Now
The city formed a Downtown Prosperity Team in November 2025 specifically to manage the fallout for nearby businesses, and its outreach has been granular. Staff walked the 700 block of Laurel Street, the 1100 block of Cherry Street, and the 700 block of El Camino Real in person before the closure even started. They emailed the owners of Mama Coco's and Faith & Spirits directly, since both sit right next to the park. They called Bow Wow Meow. At coffee chats in February and later, the businesses that showed up and raised concerns included Faith & Spirits, Mama Coco Cocina, Town, Spasso, and Stamp Bar & Grill, and the two issues that came up repeatedly were parking and alley congestion, not anything about the construction noise itself.
That mix is worth sitting with. It is not an abstract "downtown businesses" story. It includes Bow Wow Meow, a pet supply shop, and Stamp Bar & Grill, a casual fusion spot known for its small plates, alongside Faith & Spirits, Mama Coco Cocina, Town, and Spasso, businesses close enough to a single fenced-off block that they needed direct outreach rather than a mass email.
Two Projects, Not One
The park closure people are living through and the downtown transformation people are picturing are two separate approvals with two separate funding pictures.
| Phase 1A: Harrington Park | Phase 1B: 700 Block / Centennial Plaza | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Under construction since April 6, 2026 | Design only, construction not started |
| What it includes | Plaza, restroom building, raingarden, shade trees, timber pavilion | Car-free promenade, outdoor dining zones, water feature, retractable bollards |
| Funding | Included in the city's FY 2026-28 two-year budget | Contingent on funding becoming available, pending council direction |
| Timeline | Targeted completion early 2027 | Construction "may begin" in 2027, subject to approval |
The city's own announcement of the Harrington Park groundbreaking is direct about this sequencing: Harrington Park is described as "just the beginning" of the larger revitalization, with subsequent phases expected in 2027 and beyond. That is not a firm date. It is a placeholder, and the marquee piece of Phase 1B is still unsettled by design. The water feature planned for the 700 block is only "contemplated" so far, with the design of its actual centerpiece set to go through a separate public engagement process before anything gets built.
Councilmember Neil Layton put the uncertainty plainly during a council discussion of how the city should handle construction disruption more broadly:
"I don't think you should have a set game plan, it's going to have to be very fluid, of what comes up and meeting the needs of the people."
That is an honest way to describe where Phase 1B sits right now. Fluid. Not funded. Not scheduled with any certainty.
Why Early 2027 Isn't the Finish Line
If you are timing a downtown outing, a business lease decision, or just your own patience around "when will this be done," the answer depends entirely on which project you mean. The restrooms, the shaded plaza, and the raingarden inside Harrington Park itself are on a real schedule with a real budget behind them, and early 2027 is a reasonable date to hold the city to. The pedestrian-only block, the promenade, and the water feature that most people associate with "the new downtown" are still waiting on money and a council vote, with no guaranteed date attached.
So when the fencing at 753 Laurel Street finally comes down, take it for what it is: a genuinely nicer park, with real restrooms downtown finally has after residents named that as a top priority through three years of community meetings. It is a good outcome. It is just not the whole outcome. The 700 block staying a regular street, with regular parking and regular traffic, for however long Phase 1B remains unfunded is the part of this story that has not been getting equal airtime.
If you're heading downtown this fall, plan around the alley closures behind Laurel rather than the street itself, since Laurel access to storefronts has stayed open throughout. And if you want to track the actual milestones rather than the marketing version, the city posts real-time updates at cityofsancarlos.org/downtown, including the timeline shifts that don't always make it into the press coverage.
I've been writing about this town long enough to know that the gap between a rendering and a ribbon cutting is usually where the real story lives. If you're weighing what any of this means for your own plans here, whether that's a home you're thinking about selling before the 700 block construction starts or a move you're timing around a quieter downtown, I'm happy to talk through it. Call Bob and let's figure out what the timeline actually means for you.
