HarborWalk Coming Together this Summer with a Finished Look

When most landscaping plans come into shape at a new building, it takes a few years for them to mature.

The HarborWalk along the Mystic River at Encore Boston Harbor is taking shape this summer with about 25 percent of it complete
now. Remarkably, more than half of the trees are already mature at planting, with 55 percent of them 20 feet or taller.

It’s not the case at Encore Boston Harbor, where the new HarborWalk is about 25 percent complete, and the first views reveal trees that are already 20- and 30-feet tall.

“It’s going to look spectacular,” said Greg John of Encore. “This is going to be when you walk on the HarborWalk for the first time, it will look like it’s been there decades and it’s going to be amazing.”

Trees in the new HarborWalk come from all over the country, with many of them coming from upstate New York.

John said there will 800 trees on the site, with many of them up to 30-feet tall already. Some 55 percent will be 20 feet or taller when planted. There will be more than 47,000 shrubs and more than 50,000 flowers when all is said and done.

Four Ficus trees have been hand-picked in California, John said, and they will flank the Popeye sculpture when the casino opens. Those trees will be delivered later this summer.

The Encore HarborWalk is approximately one half-mile long and takes up six acres of the development.

John said it is also noteworthy that the landscaping plan will continue on to the entrance of the site, and then out onto Lower Broadway.

Another interesting piece of the HarborWalk is that John said many are noticing the wildlife return to the shore – an area described as a biological desert by consultants just two years ago.

With the clean-up done on the site, and in the river bottom, life is returning to that “desert.”

“One of the workers took a video of birds diving for fish,” said John. “That happens a lot now and it’s definitely turned things around. Prior to our clean up and remediation, every day contamination leaked into the water. When we cleaned it up, we reversed 100 years of neglect and brought things back to their original conditions. There aren’t too many opportunities to do that – to reverse 100 years of neglect.”

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