Beverly Hall-Whitaker Bridge Timeline Update Planned For November

BEVERLY, MA — A public meeting to update Beverly residents on progress toward the replacement of the closed Hall-Whitaker Drawbridge is scheduled for November.

The state Department of Transportation will host the meeting on Nov. 14 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Beverly High School.

Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill provided a cautiously optimistic update on the construction during his report on city capital projects earlier in October, saying that "the story on the progress is a better one than, I think, people had been fearing."

• Beverly Bridge Replacement Timeline Gets Positive Bump: Mayor

Cahill said the hope with an accelerated design and bid schedule construction can now begin next summer. He said that would likely put the temporary replacement bridge on schedule to open "in the first half of 2027."

"Which is not a great improvement over what we've heard before," he allowed. "But we're still trying to beat that."

The Kernwood and original Hall-Whitaker bridge would then soon be torn down for complete reconstruction. The end-of-construction timeline was revised last year to 2032.

State Department of Transportation officials said in the fall of 2022 that Beverly residents may have to deal with 13 years or more of bridge construction and traffic disruptions before both bridges were finished.

Cahill said he had requested MassDOT officials to do another community update and forum with hopes that will take place later this fall.

"The story on the progress is a better one than, I think, people had been fearing," he said. "So I want them to get out and share that here with folks."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)