Hey, remember that “$1.7 million toilet” that had the local media flush with outrage back in 2022? The cost got squeezed down, but still no toilet, and it won’t be plopped down 'til April at the earliest.

San Francisco media outlets had their underpants in a bunch with the October 2022 revelation that one single public toilet at the Noe Valley Town Square was estimated to cost $1.7 million — which was held up as an example of SF's absurd and bloated bureaucracy, because a lot of that cost was just planning and design. The whole thing was slated to be paid for by state funding anyway, or it was until Governor Gavin Newsom threatened to yank the funding appropriation unless the cost came down.

Sweet relief arrived when a pre-fab bathroom manufacturer offered to donate a free toilet, which would bring the cost to around $300,000, and the new, more affordable loo was approved in April 2013.

But hey, did we ever get that public toilet at Noe Valley Town Square? To this day, we have not.

Former Chronicle and now New York Times columnist Heather Knight, who broke the original toilet-gate story, is back on the case. Heather Knight's latest “My Latest” is an NY Times investigation into whatever happened with that toilet plan, which found that it’s still — not shockingly — hunkered down in city bureaucracy. It picks up the story in this past December, when SF Rec and Parks was apparently pretty huffy with the company donating the toilet, Nevada-based Public Restroom Company.

“Your team was unresponsive to our repeated attempts to engage,” the December letter from Rec and Parks reportedly said. “We are receiving inquiries from citizens, journalists and local lawmakers on the status of this highly publicized project. We will need to answer questions.”

Public Restroom Company president Chad Kaufman contended that other City Hall departments were still tying him up with permits, but the end is in sight.

The headline of this post declares the pre-fab bathroom is “still not built.” But it is built, alright, just not in Noe Valley. It has technically been constructed and is sitting in a yard in Minden, Nevada.

“My portion is done,” Kaufman told the Times.

The model is likely to look a little like what's seen above, though it may be slightly different, as this is just one of the Public Restroom Company’s models. But the Times reports that Public Restroom Company currently assesses it will be delivered to the Noe Valley Town Square in the next couple of months, and “should be ready for use by April.”

Related: $1.7 Million Noe Valley Public Toilet Will Now Only Cost the City $300K [SFist]

Image: Thomas D. via Yelp