Magazine Beach Has Two November 30 Deadlines

What will Magazine Beach look like on December 1? Two schedules meet at the end of this month. One is the date the Department of Conservation and Recreation set for finishing the new grassy beach along the Charles. The other is the date the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority set for filing its final sewer overflow plan. That plan has, at least in draft form, put a 10.1-million-gallon tank under the park's playing fields.

The two dates match, but the stakes don't. The shoreline work is effectively done and is waiting on roots. The playing fields are the open question. Their future depends less on what MWRA files this month than on approvals from DCR and the state Legislature, which the authority does not control.

The riverfront half is built and waiting on roots

Phase 2.2 was originally scheduled to wrap up on September 24, 2026. In its June 17 construction update, DCR pushed the end date to November 30. The agency said the extra time was "to ensure the grass and plants have enough time to fully establish before public use," and it put the anticipated reopening in December.

So the delay is about establishing new plantings. The structures themselves were reported complete back in June:

• A permanent 54-by-18.5-foot dock on the river
• A 20-by-20-foot observation deck
• Native shoreline plantings, now fed by an irrigation system DCR installed for the first growing year and for future droughts
• New lawn areas shaped into mounds meant for lounging, under active maintenance

The universally accessible paths linking the improved parking area to the waterfront were scheduled for completion at the end of July. DCR moved some of the final path routes to protect mature trees and relocated an accessible picnic table to fit. Benches, picnic tables and other furnishings were to follow once the asphalt paths and concrete pads were down. Utility lines are also going underground from Memorial Drive to the Powder House. The electrical portion is finished and power is back on at the Powder House. During construction, DCR kept everything outside the fencing open to the public.

This phase is one piece of a long effort. Magazine Beach Partners, the nonprofit that works with DCR and the city on stewardship, programming and advocacy, says it has spent 16 years working to improve the park.

The fields came up in a sewer plan

The tank is part of a $1.3 billion regional plan from MWRA, Cambridge and Somerville to cut combined sewer overflows into the Charles, the Mystic and Alewife Brook. These are the discharges that occur when heavy rain overloads old pipes carrying stormwater and sewage together. Cambridge Day reported that the draft places the tank beneath Magazine Beach's playing fields.

The size comes from the October 27 presentation that Magazine Beach Partners posted on its site. It describes a tank excavation 300 feet by 150 feet and about 70 feet deep, located by the Cottage Farm CSO Facility. Trucks would enter from Memorial Drive and use a haul route between Memorial Drive and I-90. The permanent footprint would be about 2.3 acres. The presentation puts the temporary construction easement at about 8.2 acres. Magazine Beach Partners rounds the staging area to 8.3 acres over six to eight years, and Cambridge Day reported roughly six more acres for about six years of work.

The figure that drove the response was 2.3 acres. According to Cambridge Day, MWRA officials told residents at an early October meeting that the ground above the tank would have to stay fenced off permanently. City Manager Yi-An Huang then wrote to the authority calling the plan "not a viable proposal." He said city officials had not been told about the loss of recreational space before that meeting. Magazine Beach Partners wrote that the City Council, the city manager, the Charles River Watershed Association and the Charles River Conservancy had all sent letters objecting to the fencing. The group said it supports better water quality and overflow infrastructure, "but not at the longterm expense of our newly renovated park."

Who would have to say yes

This is why the November 30 filing matters less for the fields than its timing suggests. MWRA can submit a final plan, but turning Magazine Beach into a fenced infrastructure site would need approvals the authority cannot give itself.

1. DCR, which owns the park. At the October 27 meeting, City Councilor Cathie Zusy said, according to Cambridge Day, "DCR has written to me saying they haven't permitted this and they don't intend to permit this as proposed."
2. The state Legislature. Magazine Beach is protected parkland. Under Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution, converting it to infrastructure would take a two-thirds vote in both chambers, according to the same report. State Rep. Mike Connolly says Magazine Beach is not an appropriate site, and he told the meeting that state Sen. Sal DiDomenico also opposes giving up the park.
3. The city. Huang's letter and the Council's unanimous October 20 policy order both ask MWRA to look at other sites and designs that keep the park open to the public.

The regional schedule leaves room for that review. The October presentation spreads implementation across 2027 through the 2050s and gives no construction start date for Magazine Beach.

What MWRA put back on the table on October 27

The second Morse School meeting sounded different from the first. About 50 people came to the cafeteria, and MWRA Chief Operating Officer Kathy Murtagh told them the plan was far from final. Cambridge Day reported her words:

"Right now, the design's just not mature enough to say you can or you can't do that, and we mistakenly went to the most secure (option) for the authority. That's not obviously where we would land on this kind of project in this community."

Murtagh pointed to MWRA's tank in Stoneham, where a grassy field stays open above the storage structure. That is one example of a tank that does not mean losing the surface. She also said MWRA would look at other sites, though any of them would need more infrastructure to connect back to the Cottage Farm treatment facility near the Boston University Bridge. Residents suggested nearby parking lots, MIT-owned property and the former Beacon Park rail yard across the river in Allston.

Connolly still wants the site dropped. He said the problem goes beyond the 2.3 acres to the years of construction: "if we're talking six years or more of lost opportunity, I mean that's someone's childhood, that's someone's golden years," he said, as reported by Cambridge Day.

So MWRA is now discussing two options it did not offer in early October: keeping the surface open above a tank, as in Stoneham, or moving the tank off the park. The public comment window that opened April 30 closed October 30. Magazine Beach Partners and the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association each said they were sending formal letters before that deadline.

The winter calendar at the river

If the fencing comes down on DCR's schedule, the new dock and observation deck will be open in time for the winter programs. Mass Audubon's Magazine Beach Park Nature Center has two programs on the calendar, and both require registration:

• Winter Wildlife Tracking, Saturday, January 23, 2027, 1 to 2:30 p.m.
• Late Winter Bird Walk, Saturday, February 20, 2027, 8 to 9:30 a.m.

For the 8 a.m. bird walk, Greedy Cow Donut Factory is at 114 Magazine St. Cambridge Day covered its opening this August, and it serves donuts, coffee and Brooklyn Bagel Factory bagels.

For updates on the playing fields, Magazine Beach Partners has been posting MWRA's presentations as they come out.

At Sandrine Deschaux + Co, we follow Magazine Beach the way our Cambridgeport neighbors do, from the new dock to the fate of the fields beside it. If you'd like to talk about how the riverfront fits into your plans for the neighborhood, we'd be glad to. Schedule a Consultation.