Mayor Todd Gloria, Council President Joe LaCava and Councilmember Jennifer Campbell announced the restoration Wednesday, Aug. 12. The funding combines discretionary Community Projects, Programs and Services allocations from LaCava and Campbell with General Fund resources made available by higher-than-expected state grant funding.

Reopening is temporary for now

The arrangement restores service at 13 affected Mission Bay Park locations through the end of calendar year 2026. The city plans to reassess the service during its midyear budget review and evaluate whether the restrooms can remain open through the full fiscal year.

That review is a future evaluation, not a decision to continue funding. Residents, families, workers, visitors and businesses using Mission Bay Park therefore have restored access in the short term, while the longer-term budget question remains unresolved.

These are the 13 locations

The city identified the reopening locations as:

• El Carmel
• Ventura Point
• Bonita Cove East
• Hospitality Point
• Vacation Isle West
• South Shores
• North Cove
• Crown Point South
• Ski Beach North
• Ski Beach Middle
• Tecolote North
• Playa Pacifica III
• De Anza South

The city announcement said the Parks and Recreation Department would begin reopening all 13 affected facilities on Aug. 14. That announcement did not establish that every restroom was fully operational at every moment.

Budget cuts prompted the closures

The facilities closed in early July after the City Council adopted Fiscal Year 2027 budget reductions. The city said those reductions closed 13 of Mission Bay Park’s 24 public restrooms. July reporting documented a dispute over whether available funds could support reopening and maintenance.

An earlier Office of the Independent Budget Analyst review provides additional budget context. Issued June 3, 2025, the analysis described a restoration scenario for 13 of 28 permanent Mission Bay Park restrooms and estimated a need for 5.68 full-time-equivalent positions and approximately $517,000.

The IBA figures were an earlier restoration estimate, not the final amount of the 2026 arrangement announced by the city. The current plan instead uses District 1 and District 2 CPPS allocations along with General Fund resources linked to higher-than-expected state grant funding.

For now, the practical change is that 13 previously closed Mission Bay Park restrooms are being returned to service, with funding in place through December 2026 and a midyear review still ahead.

Sources

• City of San Diego announcement on the Mission Bay restroom reopening
• KPBS report on the Mission Bay restroom funding dispute

The project is identified by name in the 2026 Session Laws of the State of Washington. That wording explicitly ties the improvement to Brier Park rather than to a nearby Snohomish County facility or a broader regional project.

What is confirmed

The appropriation is intended to support rebuilding park restroom facilities. If the project moves forward, the work could improve sanitation, accessibility and visitor services at Brier Park. Those are potential effects, not confirmed results: the available record does not describe the final design or establish what the completed facilities will include.

The project name also does not show whether the rebuild involves one restroom building or multiple facilities. The $489,000 figure is the amount listed as the state appropriation, but it should not be treated as the total project cost unless a separate project budget confirms that.

For residents and park users, the immediate development is the inclusion of the named Brier improvement in the state’s 2026 session-laws budget. The document does not provide a construction start date, an opening date or a completion deadline.

Construction details are not yet listed

The available record does not identify the implementing agency, payment schedule, design status or whether Brier must provide matching funds. It also does not confirm that the project has been advertised for bids or that a construction contract has been awarded.

Brier’s municipal code provides for city planning and land-use review, but the available search did not locate a current city construction notice for this project. As a result, there is no verified schedule showing when work could affect park access, when construction might begin or when restroom facilities could reopen.

Construction has not been established as having begun. The budget listing is a funding action, not a notice that work is underway or that a contractor has been selected.

What comes next

The state budget record does not specify the next administrative step or set a project deadline. Additional city or state records would be needed to show how the appropriation will be administered, whether design work is complete, when bidding could occur and whether the listed amount will be supplemented by other funds.

For now, the confirmed change is the state’s listing of $489,000 for the Brier Park Bathroom Rebuild during the 2026 legislative session. The appropriation gives the project a documented state funding source, while its scope, schedule, contracting status and final cost remain unsettled in the available record.