LYNN — City and state officials presented their plans for the Lynn Harbor Park project to Governor Charlie Baker in a tent at the end of Hanson Street Tuesday morning, following a tour to the top of what is now a landfill hill, and will soon be part of a 33-acre public park.
Moments before a black SUV rolled into the lot behind the Walmart on Hanson Street, off the Lynnway, state delegation members mingled with city officials over bagels and coffee. After Baker stepped out of the SUV and made his way into the tent, Mayor Jared Nicholson presented the city’s plan to develop the vast waterfront lot, owned by MassDevelopment, into a public space.
“What’s so exciting about this park is that we are proactively creating a space for everybody in the city. This waterfront is going to connect us to the ocean, it’s going to create those development opportunities, and there’s going to be a place for everyone so that the community is involved as well,” Nicholson said.
The Harbor Park, a joint project between the City of Lynn, MassDevelopment, and Charter Contracting, aims to resemble a space similar to that of Spectacle Island in Boston — a public park with waterfront access, and hilltop lookout point. MassDevelopment President and former Mayor of Lawrence Dan Rivera praised the notion that through collaboration between public and private entities, a former landfill dump site can become a developed public space.
“Placemaking is so much more than just pocket parks and rail trails, it’s an important part of making any economic development area, and we’re here for that, to help be the glue, or the gum, or the duct tape, whatever it will take, to bring EDA, Charter, the city, the EDIC, all of the great players in this. And it’s definitely gonna be an alphabet soup of accomplishment,” Rivera said.
Baker, who mentioned that he used to go to shows on the Lynn waterfront and “stay up late” in the ‘70s, spoke about how important he thought it was for the state to support large-scale public space projects in mid-sized cities, as an investment for communities. He commented that, on the state level, development boards often overlook some of the less profitable, but highly transformative projects in developing cities.
“You got a lot of what I would call ‘development pros who sit on that board. And I’m sure when you brought it in there, they looked at the dollars and cents and the return on all their assets and said, ‘Why is this here?’ The answer is exactly the one you [Rivera] gave, which is it’s an opportunity to do something that could make a transformational difference in a waterfront community,” Baker said. “I am only bringing that up because I think sometimes we don’t always, at the state level, appreciate the vision and the possibilities, and a lot of our colleagues and local government officials can bring to these conversations.”
When Baker asked founder and president of Charter Contracting Bob Delhome about the project’s timeline, Delhome responded that the preliminary phase should be completed by 2025, with permits expected to be filed sometime in January or February.
“The current path that we’re on is really targeting a very highly aesthetic, functional Park. Sometime mid 2025. Is, is the current sort of flight path of the project,” Delhome said.
The crowd laughed as Baker jokingly expressed disappointment that the project would not be completed by the end of his term.
“So, not by the end of my term,” Baker said. “ We said ‘wouldn’t that be a cool thing to be able to deliver?’ ”
On their way up the landfill, officials took turns speaking to Baker, and stopping to take photographs on the hill’s ledge. Economic Development and Industrial Corporation Executive Director Jim Cowdell commented that it was “a great day for Lynn,” while Baker echoed his remarks, praising the work of all parties involved in the project’s planning.
“The planning that people have been doing these past several years to get to the point where they can start the ‘doing’ part is terrific,” Baker said. “I do agree with the mayor. I think that the potential for this to be a placemaker for a whole new neighborhood, a whole new city, is profound. There just aren’t that many places where you can put a really significant waterfront park, and this is one of them.”
