SWAMPSCOTT — Nearly a year after Town Meeting approved the purchase of Hawthorne by the Sea for $7 million in June, residents saw proposed designs for the Humphrey Street property at a public hearing Wednesday evening at Swampscott High School.
Architects from HDR, the engineering company hired to design the new public space, focused discussion on three potential uses for the former seaside restaurant — Black Will’s Cliff Park, Swampscott Town Square, and King’s Beach Pier and Park.
The Black Will’s Cliff Park design is an open-space seaside park comprising large circular pathways, a public lawn facing a small performance platform, and a “mobility center” in which residents can use public restrooms, lock their bicycles, or charge their phones. Of the three options, HDR Design Principal Michael McPhail said Black Will’s Cliff Park had the least amount of architecture and the greatest portion of green space.
“The architectural component, that’s relatively small. In this case, we tried to keep it almost hidden, so that it’s buried in the landscape. The perception of the site is largely green. It’s largely about the landscape,” McPhail said.
HDR Senior Landscape Architect Tom Hughes said the Swampscott Town Square design would incorporate roughly 20 percent less green space than the cliff park concept. Instead, he said, it would combine a main open-air trellis structure for public gathering with a sea-facing indoor community that could be rented out for weddings or large events.
Hughes said the town square option would still have a cliffside lawn and waterfront pathway for public green space.
“You could use that sort of three-season space for activities right along the street, which could be farmers markets, it could be festivals for the town — there’s a lot of different opportunities to use this kind of threshold space that moves into the park behind it,” Hughes said. “It’s an opportunity to create a cool, very fun, inviting community space that isn’t inside, but it’s kind of an indoor–outdoor combo.”
The third option, King’s Beach Pier and Park, would include some sort of raised architectural “beacon” on land and about 60 percent green space, with a boardwalk or raised-dock structure into the water.
McPhail said that King’s Beach Pier and Park would pay homage to Swampscott’s seaside culture. He described the design’s essence as being “prototypically New England” because of its focus on bringing people close to the water.
“The other two options are kind of staying on the site. This one looks at it from the perspective of ‘Why not think about an opportunity to get out on the water and to experience the site in a different way and to access the site in a different way?’” McPhail said.
Before residents broke into roundtable discussions to share their opinions for the property’s use, Select Board Member David Grishman reminded the residents that none of the three options were set in stone.
“No decisions have been made yet. We need resident input, which is so incredibly important for this process. The Select Board is listening, and HDR is listening. That said, I encourage everybody to dream big just as your elected officials did,” Grishman said.
After roundtable discussions, architects shared some of the common suggestions residents shared. Many residents expressed concern over commercial space, stressing that they wanted a carefully-managed mixture of architecture and green space, easy access to the waterfront, and some sort of historical aspect relating to Swampscott’s Native American history.
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald closed the meeting by expressing his pride in the fact that Swampscott could undergo such a large creation with community feedback. He said that Wednesday night’s event will be one of many community discussions on the site.
“This is part of democracy,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s important that folks really take this opportunity to share their thoughts and their vision for their hometown. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where folks can share their thoughts and their vision for this property, and help us really create the best vision for this generation and future generations.”
