Harbor Towers cuts ribbon on $20M flood-barrier project

Mayor Michelle Wu joined residents of Harbor Towers Condominiums on Wednesday by cutting the ribbon on the downtown waterfront property’s $20 million flood-resistance project that includes deployable barriers.

The ribbon-cutting was part of Deployables Day, a citywide gathering that highlights publicly and privately owned deployable flood barriers.

In recent years, the high-rise condominiums have experienced their share of damage because of flooding and severe storms. In 2018, floodwaters came within inches of the property, which prompted the condominium to act.

As concerns about rising tides have continued to grow, Harbor Towers decided to take the next step and install deployable flood barriers to protect the building’s infrastructure.

“We have four of our largest and most impacted and important public spaces that have deployables in place and ready to go when the need is,” Wu said. “And since we started the program, 11 private properties as well, with this one being one of the most significant.”

As sea levels continue to rise and the threats of climate change become more apparent, Boston will continue its efforts to fight back and work to preserve the city, Wu said.

“The specifics are really real, and the benefit that Boston has is we already know what we need to do,” Wu said. “We were way ahead of many other cities in really doing the hard work of putting those maps against our real-life conditions.”

Norman Meisner, chairman of the Harbor Towers Board of Trustees, said residents of the 54-year-old towers received a “wake-up call” in the winter of 2018, when not one but two “one in a hundred-year storms” struck.

Meisner described the towers as likely the second-lowest elevation on Boston’s waterfront, with Long Wharf being the lowest.

The trustees sought solutions to the threat of flooding and found that protecting the perimeter of the structures was the most feasible option. They brought on Weston & Sampson as their architect and engineer and Build Enclosure Science as their project manager. Commodore

The decision was made to protect the towers with a combination of permanent and deloyable protections.

The $20 million for the project came entirely from the condo owners, Meisner said. It is expected to protect the towers for the next 50 years.

Meisner said the project was completed “on time and within budget.”

This story is part of a partnership between The North End Regional Review and the Suffolk University Department of Journalism program.