Construction Begins in Ellis Square

Work on Ellis Square began on Friday, a couple months after the city selected a contractor. Passersby will likely notice the missing trees and added security fencing, but in a few months Beverly will have a brand new park.

Beverly Main Streets has made the Ellis Square project -- the park at the intersection of Church and Cabot Streets -- a priority in the past few years, said Beverly Main Streets Executive Director Gin Wallace. Main Streets raised $100,000 from selling bricks in Ellis Square and corporate sponsorship to fund the project, in addition to a grant from Beverly's Community Preservation Committee.

"It never really was created with any intention that it would be a gathering space for people," said Wallace of the square. "But it's the only public space other than city hall on Cabot Street in the downtown area."

Wallace said Ellis Square, which has essentially been a "concrete pad" since its creation, will look a lot more like a park when the contractor is done in 12 weeks or so, weather permitting. The trees have been taken down, but will eventually be replaced by trees with roots that won't buckle the sidewalk.

Landscaping and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will be major aspects of the construction. Matt Ulrich, a local landscape architect, helped to design the square with a citizens' group. The memorial will be replaced, and the design for the new monument is pending. A committee of veterans will help decide whether the memorial remains dedicated to veterans of the Vietnam War, or another conflict.

"I think it's going to be much more inviting, and it's going to feel more like a park or a village square than it did when it was literally all concrete," said Wallace.

She said the construction would not impede traffic in the same way as the Brimbal Avenue and Rantoul Street projects, and there are no road closures planned at this time.

Part of the project is to narrow Church Street by about 10 feet to make it safer for pedestrians to cross from the Golden Hanger Consignment Store to the First Parish Church. Currently, drivers coming from the Beverly/Salem Bridge can just bear right rather than make a defined right turn, said Wallace.

The final bid for the project was close to $300,000, with $100,000 of that coming from private fundraising. Wallace said the initial design played with the idea of using contemporary features, but ultimately the design committee went with a look more fitting to the historic space.

Construction is expected to be finished between eight and 12 weeks, and the new veterans' memorial is expected to go up in 2017.