BEVERLY — The group organizing a celebration of the city’s 400th anniversary is looking to kickstart a revitalization of Independence Park.
Beverly 400+, a nonprofit that formed to plan a quadricentennial celebration in 2026, has applied for a $125,000 grant from the city’s Community Preservation Act fund. The grant money would be used to come up with a design to improve Independence Park, a 3-acre waterfront park on Lothrop Street.
Beverly 400+ member Gin Wallace said the group came up with the idea of helping to fix up the park because it wants to contribute something to the city that lasts beyond the celebratory events.
“We thought long and hard about what parts of our history are most important in terms of the significance of us becoming a city, and Independence Park just kept coming up,” she said.
The city’s Community Preservation Committee has recommended to the City Council that the $125,000 request be approved. A public hearing was scheduled for Monday, Dec. 16, during the City Council meeting at City Hall.
The money would be used to come up with a design for the revitalization work. The committee would then likely go back to the CPC to request more money for the actual implementation of the plan, Wallace said.
The main goals are to improve access for people with disabilities and to tell the history of Independence Park.
The park was the site of two key events in the early history of the city — the battle between the schooner Hannah and British naval ship the Nautilus, which were ships during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and one of the earliest public readings of the Declaration of Independence, by Col. John Glover, on July 17, 1776.
The 400+ committee is planning to hold a reenactment of the Hannah-Nautilus battle at Independence Park as part of its year-long celebration in 2026.
The park has a plaque noting both the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the launching of the Hannah “in these waters,” a sign explaining the Hannah-Nautilus encounter, and 18th-century replica cannons and flagpoles.
The group wants to keep those pieces “but put it together in a way that says this is what happened here, why it’s important to Beverly, and tell the story in an interpretive way,” Wallace said.
“It’s an amazing spot with beautiful views,” she said. “We want to do more down there to encourage people to visit it and take advantage of this amazing space.”
The walkway through the park is too steep in some places to meet disability requirements.
The city will play an active part in reviewing the conceptual design and providing feedback. The park will continue to be maintained by the city like all other city-owned parks, according to the committee’s application to the CPC.
The committee has looked at previous plans that were put together in 2017 when a group of neighbors was looking to make upgrades to the park, Wallace said.
The improvements will only apply to the park section of Independence, not to the beach, access to the beach, or seawall. The city is planning to make those improvements as part of a separate project, she said.
The CPA raises money from a combination of local and state tax revenues, including a 1% surcharge on property taxes in Beverly.
For more information on Beverly’s 400+ celebration, visit beverly400.org.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.