The Free Toilet Still Had a Million-Dollar Bill

Bill Maher, February 2023. Facebook’s title on the clip is “San Francisco’s Golden Toilet.” When this copy was pulled it had about 2.8 million views. He asks if you know the toilet. “The cost of $1.7 million each.” San Francisco, he says, “the poop capital of the world,” wanted one public outdoor toilet. The bid was $1.7 million and, he says, three years. The press got it. The city stopped. A company offered to donate the toilet and pay to install it. He says you just saved $1.7 million. Then the Chronicle number: it would still cost $1.2 million, because the bill was not the toilet. Construction management, engineering fees, permits, civic design review, surveys, contract preparation, a cost estimate. “This is the bullshit.”

The paper is Heather Knight, October 19, 2022. One stall, about 150 square feet, for Noe Valley Town Square. The plumbing was already in the plaza. Assemblymember Matt Haney had secured $1.7 million in state money because Rec and Park told him that was the going rate. His line: “They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million.” The column said it would not be ready until 2025, more than two years out. Maher said three. After the column, Haney canceled the celebration he had planned, and Governor Newsom said the state would not pay until the city brought the number down.

Rec and Park’s own sheet, the one the Chronicle printed that winter, priced a custom toilet at $1.7 million and a prefabricated one at $1.2 million. In both versions, construction and materials were less than half. The rest was project management, construction management, architecture and engineering fees, permits, civic design review, surveys, contract preparation, and cost estimation. Chad Kaufman, president of Public Restroom Co., offered the unit he sells for $135,000, free, and said he and Vaughan Buckley of Volumetric Building Cos. would cover transport, the crane, union installation, and much of the architecture and engineering. Kaufman called the leftover lines things the city puts in “to fluff and cover their backsides.” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said the department hoped to keep the city’s share under $1 million. Spokesperson Tamara Aparton would not confirm that figure. Her line was that every building, no matter who pays, still goes through approvals, permitting, and reviews.

They did blink. In January 2023 the city put the Noe Valley price at $725,000, crediting a gift worth about $425,000 and about $491,000 cut out of the project. In April the Board of Supervisors took the same $1.7 million state grant and aimed it at two toilets. Supervisor Joel Engardio called the second one, at Precita Park, Toiletgate 2.0, because it was still estimated at $1.4 million. The Noe Valley unit was delivered in March 2024 and opened on April 15. Rec and Park said that bathroom’s bottom line ended up around $200,000.

The $200,000 is what embarrassment bought. It is not what the process quoted. A city that needs a place for people to go to the bathroom wrote a seven-figure estimate for one stall, then, offered the stall for free, still had a million dollars of process left on the page. The toilet was never the expensive part. The departments were.