Newburyport receives $400K for Market Landing Park project
Sep. 26—NEWBURYPORT — The state's secretary of energy and environmental affairs traveled to the waterfront Friday to celebrate the city receiving a $400,000 grant.
Newburyport received word last week that it was awarded the Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant from the state to be used for the $11 million Market Landing Park construction and expansion project.
The project is designed to convert a number of the city's waterfront parking lots into additional park space that would flank the east and west sides of the 4.6-acre site, which is also known as Waterfront Park and is adjacent to the Mayor Peter J. Matthews Memorial Boardwalk along the Merrimack River.
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card was joined in Waterfront Park on Friday afternoon by Mayor Sean Reardon, City Council President Heather Shand, Senior Project Manager Geordie Vining and Director of Planning and Development Andy Port to get a closer look at the project.
Card had been marking Climate Week with visits to Wellfleet, Plymouth, Melrose, Reading, North Reading and Lowell, among other locations. She said Newburyport's Market Landing Park project is "incredible."
"This is reflective of the importance of state and local partnerships, and the teamwork that is needed to make this kind of work move ahead," Card said. "It helps us all advance our climate mitigation and climate resiliency goals."
Reardon echoed the secretary's comments and praised the work of the city's Planning & Development Department.
"Good planning leads to good results and I think you have to have good plans to get some of these grants," he said.
Vining said people have been fighting over the Central Waterfront for generations, but the current project is the best plan to have come forward.
"There have been so many different visions presented and many of them in the past would collapse under their own weight. Many people feel that it was actually good that we went through all of that struggle and have gotten to this point," he said. "And, in terms of climate resiliency, if this project had been done 10 years ago, we would not have been able to focus on climate resiliency in the same way."
The Newburyport Redevelopment Authority transferred ownership of the site to the city and dissolved a few years ago.
But the expansion portion of the project actually began in 2019 when parking spaces were removed from the west and east municipal waterfront parking lots and the lawn was also expanded.
"This really has been a long road," Shand said. "We dissolved the NRA in 2019, which got us to this point where we can actually have the add-on park put on last year."
The state's $400,000 grant is expected to be added to a $3 million loan backed by the city's Community Preservation Committee that was approved by the City Council in July.
The Community Preservation Committee manages the city's Community Preservation Act funding, which is matched by the state.
Construction on Phase 1 of the project is expected to begin next spring and will include a new shared use path that Port said would complete the connection to the city's smart growth district near the MBTA commuter rail station on the Newbury border.
"All of that connectivity that creates between that area and the downtown is very important," he said.
Port said the project would raise park areas to protect them from sea level rise.
The same would be done with the visitors restroom building.
"We will also have drought- and salt-tolerant plantings," he said.
Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.
Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.
