BOSTON — Boston’s waterfront has helped define the city for centuries, but rising sea levels and the growing threat of coastal flooding are forcing some of the city’s best-known waterfront properties to spend millions of dollars to protect themselves.
Boston ranks eighth among major global cities considered most vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.
A powerful winter storm in 2018 inundated parts of downtown Boston, leaving busy streets and valuable real estate underwater.
Today, even high tides without the energy of a major storm can leave areas of Long Wharf underwater.
At the Boston Children’s Museum, sitting directly along the Fort Point Channel, that 2018 storm served as a wake-up call.
“In 2018 there was a storm that actually made the museum an island,” said Melissa Higgins, president and CEO of the Boston Children’s Museum. “There was water in our front yard on the channel. There was water coming behind the museum on Sleeper Street and flooding that area, and so that was a very clear indication that we needed to be aware.”
And take action.
Earlier this year, the museum launched a $15 million waterfront resiliency plan designed to help protect the building from future flooding.
Higgins said the waterfront location is an important part of the museum’s identity, providing opportunities to introduce children and families to the water and natural world.
“If there is a closure of the museum, all that would go away,” Higgins said. “So, we are really doing this for the children and the families that we serve and to be a model for other historic buildings, or just buildings in the city that are on the waterfront.”
Protecting the building from the water
Marta Guerra, an architect and urban designer at Sasaki, said one of the first projects calls for installing a waterproof membrane around the museum to protect the museum’s mechanical infrastructure and first-floor exhibits.
“I think that private institutions like the museum and others are at the forefront because they feel it,” Guerra said. “Right now, the city is also addressing some things, but the museum cannot wait because they would need to close, and it’s terrible for business.”
“The waters are rising,” she added. “Anyone who lives here sees it, feels it.”
Since 1950, sea level has risen 8.5 inches in the waters around Boston Harbor. By 2050, it’s projected to rise 20 inches.
Those numbers are also driving major investments elsewhere along Boston’s waterfront.
Harbor Towers invests $20 million
At Harbor Towers, the condominium association recently unveiled a $20 million investment aimed at protecting its waterfront buildings.
“The decision was made that we had to protect the buildings at the building perimeters,” said trustee Norman Meisner.
The improvements include barriers that can be quickly put into place when flooding threatens.
The ocean-facing sides of the buildings have also been permanently sealed.
“The glass is built to withstand 128-mile-an-hour winds, and a small vessel can bump it and not do harm,” added Meisner.
The private investments are happening while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducts a $6 million study examining what needs to be done to protect Boston over the longer term.
The study is expected to identify 20 projects along 16 miles of coastline.
The report is scheduled to be completed in 2028.
Brian Swett, Boston’s chief climate officer, said large-scale projects to protect the city’s shoreline can take decades to complete, making efforts by private property owners an important part of Boston’s preparations.
“The do-nothing scenario, in terms of cleaning up after a storm event, is always more costly than the preparedness,” Swett said.
Boston’s relationship with the harbor, he said, is both an asset and a vulnerability.
“I think the Boston resident and the Boston building owner has come to appreciate that we are a harbor-based city, and we don’t want to lose that,” Swett said. “But it means we have to invest in coastal resilience.”
And the concern extends well beyond properties sitting directly on the water.
Much of Boston was built on filled tidal lands, including areas of the Back Bay and South End, as well as Logan Airport.
Swett said those areas include more than 20,000 buildings and are home to roughly 40% of Boston’s population, significantly expanding the number of people and properties that could be affected by rising water.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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