"Everyone is hoping that this is it, and I believe it will be," Plymouth DPW Director William Coyle told the Plymouth Independent in mid-September. "We want it to be done in time for the Thanksgiving Day parade."
He was talking about Water Street, which has had barricades for the fourth time in as many years. His target sets the shape of the rest of downtown's fall. On November 21 the parade leaves Plymouth Rock at 10 a.m. and finishes at Court and Nelson streets. Over the next seven weeks the town is trying to finish construction, open a hotel and run a full festival calendar on the same few blocks. Some of that work is due before the parade. Much of the rest is scheduled for 2027.
Seventy feet of pipe, four years of barricades
The current dig covers the last 70 feet of a quarter-mile sewer line under the edge of the harbor. The old line was a 30-inch pipe from 1969. Town officials worried that a break would be an environmental disaster for the waterfront.
Northern Construction won the replacement contract in 2022 and started work that December. The job was supposed to be done by the end of June 2023. In March 2023, groundwater problems and shifting soils damaged the street, the sidewalks and five buildings on Water and Chilton streets. One building had to be razed. Work paused for the 2023 tourist season, resumed in January 2024 and was finished in May 2024. By then the new pipe was already settling. The last 70 feet sank further than expected into unstable soil. To pay for extra support under that section, the town agreed to give the contractor another $800,000. That brings the project total to $7.3 million.
The town's September 11 notice gives the schedule for this phase:
- Dates: Monday, September 14, through Saturday, November 14
- Hours: weekdays, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with some Saturday work if needed
- Traffic: Water Street is one-way southbound between the rotary and Chilton Street. Northbound traffic is detoured.
- Parking: the Memorial Hall lot stays open from Court Street
- Businesses: all remain open during construction
November 14 is the town's planned finish, a week before the parade. The latest published reports confirm the one-way pattern. None of them confirm the end date. Given the project's history, a week is a small cushion.
The detour goes past the newest hotel
Northbound drivers are sent up Chilton Street. Chilton was also the street where the trench damaged buildings in 2023. This fall it has a new hotel.
The Drew opened its first phase on Friday, September 18, with 25 rooms in two 1800s buildings at 3 and 5/7 Chilton Street. Both had been residential rentals. Developer Rick Vayo told the Plymouth Independent that the first two nights were 85 percent booked. Off-season rates run from about $200 to $425 a night, and most rooms are under $300. Rates will be higher in peak season.
A second phase is already under construction a block away. Three properties on Howland Street will add 17 rooms, for 42 in total, and are scheduled to be done by late spring 2027. A rendering shows a function room and garden linking the Chilton Street side to the Howland Street rooms.
The hotel is the latest downtown project from Vayo's company, Megryco. Earlier projects include condos in the former National Guard Armory on Court Street and in the former Registry of Deeds building on Russell Street. Megryco also turned the Governor Bradford Hotel on Water Street into apartments with La Baia and Vitamin Sea Brewery downstairs. Plimoth General Store on Main Street and Bamp's Toy Vault, which opened in 2025, are also Megryco projects. In every case, Megryco renovated an existing building and did not tear it down.
For anyone who lives downtown, the Water Street detour runs past a block where 25 rooms just opened and 17 more are under construction. Both projects use Chilton Street through November.
The festival the nor'easter pushed to October
The Downtown Waterfront District planned its Seafood Festival for September 26. A forecast nor'easter pushed it to Saturday, October 10. The festival now falls in the fourth week of the Water Street work.
It runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at three sites:
- Hedge House Lawn, 126 Water Street
- The lawn next to the Harbormaster's Building, between East Bay Grille and Lobster Hut
- Town Hall Green, 26 Court Street
A free trolley links the three sites. The trolley helps more than usual this year. Two of the three sites are on or near Water Street, and northbound traffic is still being detoured there. The town says the Memorial Hall lot is open from Court Street. That lot is close to Town Hall Green.
Plimoth Patuxet's Indigenous Peoples' Weekend runs October 9 and 10, so it overlaps with the festival. Saturday's program includes talks at the Wampanoag Homesite, a cooking display and a clothing work session.
Court Street has its own schedule
Water Street isn't the only road project downtown. On September 28 the town started replacing the Cherry Street water main between Squanto Road and Durigan Street. A second phase, from Court Street to Standish Avenue, was expected to start in the second week of October and take about a month. It includes some overnight work on Court Street.
That timing matters. Court Street is where the parade finishes, where Town Hall Green hosts the fall festivals and where drivers reach the Memorial Hall lot. If the Court Street phase starts on schedule and takes about a month, it wraps up in mid-November, around the same time the Water Street work is due to end. Cherry Street will then pause for the winter, resume in April 2027 and get its final paving in fall 2027.
Countdown to November 21
Here's what's on the calendar between now and the parade:
- October 10: Seafood Festival, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the three sites above
- October 18: Plimoth's second annual Cider Donut 5K, 9:30 a.m.
- October 24 and 25: a free Harvest Festival on Town Hall Green, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday
- November 7: a Plymouth Philharmonic concert at Plymouth South High School, 7:30 p.m.
- November 14: the town's scheduled end of the Water Street work
- November 20: the Phil's America's Hometown Thanksgiving concert at Memorial Hall, 7 p.m.
- November 21: the Thanksgiving parade, from Plymouth Rock at 10 a.m. to Court and Nelson streets. It's free.
The November 20 concert gets a little more notice this year. On September 30 the Phil held a ribbon cutting at Memorial Hall to mark its new role there as Orchestra-in-Residence. Its Thanksgiving concert will be in that hall six days after Water Street is due to reopen and the night before the parade.
Plimoth Patuxet's New England Harvest Feast dinners on November 7, 14 and 21 fall on the same Saturdays.
What runs past the parade
Several downtown projects run well past the November deadline.
Jenney Pond and Brewster Gardens. In July the Plymouth Independent described the area as a construction zone. One end was cut off from Brewster Gardens and the waterfront. Equipment and materials took up the free parking around the pond, and access to the Spring Lane lot was limited. At that point, the paths were expected to reopen by spring, with planting and landscaping continuing into spring 2027. No newer report has been published, so treat the July conditions as the last confirmed status.
Gillis Family Tavern. The tavern closed its location at the Jenney Grist Mill at the end of May and announced a move to 22 Main Street. Its website still says the Main Street location is opening "soon."
The Drew's Howland Street rooms. These are scheduled for late spring 2027.
Mayflower Brewing. The change with the firmest date is a few miles from downtown. Mayflower Brewing has run its brewery and tasting room on Resnik Road since 2007. It will close both on December 31. Its owner, Mike McNamara of Orleans-based Hog Island Beer Company, will brew Mayflower beer at the Cape Cod Beer brewery in Hyannis, which he bought at the same time he bought Mayflower. "The space is just far too great for what we need, and the cost associated was pretty grand," he told the Plymouth Independent. The seasonal beer garden on the green in Pinehills will stay open, and the company is looking for a new tasting room location. The town will still have six other breweries: Vitamin Sea, Untold Brewing, Second Wind, IndieFerm, Llama Nama and Sour Not Sorry.
In Manomet, The Lobster Pound at 252 Manomet Point Road reopened on August 10 under new operators. It had been closed since 2023. It planned to stay open seven days a week through mid-to-late October before cutting back its hours. If you want to eat there before the schedule changes, go in the next couple of weeks.
That leaves the November dates. The Water Street work is scheduled to end on November 14. The Drew's Chilton Street rooms are open now. Town Hall Green has two festivals this month. Brewster Gardens, the Howland Street rooms and the last of Cherry Street are all scheduled for 2027.
Our team at O'Neill Group keeps track of how projects like Water Street, The Drew and Cherry Street change daily life on specific downtown Plymouth streets, and when each one is expected to finish. If you'd like to know how this fall's work affects a particular street or property, contact us. We're glad to share what we know.
