SCITUATE — At the Scituate Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 State of the Town, officials answered questions about planned infrastructure improvements and economic development initiatives, giving insights into how the town’s business landscape might change in the coming years.
Officials emphasized the importance of communication between local government and businesses in furthering economic development and encouraged business owners to provide feedback to the town.
The Chamber of Commerce opened a question-and-answer period with Town Administrator James Boudreau by asking about a project to expand the town’s sewer north, which was recently approved at town meeting for $27 million. The town received a $5 million state grant and a low-interest state loan for the project, and Boudreau said he had requested another $15 million from the state.
The project is 90% designed, and bidding will begin in September. Construction will start in the spring and take 24 months.
“This is probably the biggest economic development project we'll do in my time here,” he said.
Boudreau said that construction will impact traffic in the business district, but emphasized the potential economic benefits of the expansion: the new sewer coverage will allow for construction of 200,000 square feet of retail space and 400 housing units.
“North Scituate is a gem waiting to be uncovered,” he said.
Costs will be met with a betterment assessed to owners of commercial and residential property, though the town does not yet know what the bill will be for property owners.
Boudreau also confirmed that a project to rebuild the Cole Parkway gazebo, which the town tore down in February due to safety concerns, is currently out to bid. The design is “essentially the same” but bigger, he said.
In the meantime, the town will provide a temporary stage at Cole Parkway for summer concerts.
In response to a question about possibly restoring the town-owned Scituate Harbor Community Center, Boudreau advocated for tearing the building down to make room for a public park. He argued that costs would quickly snowball if the town tried to repair the building, which is not ADA compliant and must be raised to meet federal flooding regulations.
“When you start putting those costs together for a building that does not get a ton of use, it really made no sense to do it,” he said.
The chair of the Economic Development Commission, Berry Kurland, explained how the EDC distributes its funds to local events and facilitates communication between town government and local businesses.
The hot topic of his presentation was tourism—“the T-word,” Kurland called it. He said that the town was seeking funding from the state and other tourism boards to invest in Scituate’s tourism industry, which he characterized as a way to generate money for Scituate residents without investing their tax dollars.
The Commission has also been working on polishing Scituate’s brand identity. It put out a request for professional services for a “pilot marketing project” to “raise the profile of Scituate.” Its first priority in this new marketing push will be on social media, Kurland said.
“Scituate has, essentially—I won't call it a problem—an opportunity to define brand in a way and define identity in a way that everybody in town can leverage,” he said. “Sometimes it's difficult to understand, who are our customers, how do we attract more customers? Where are they coming from? How do we create an identity where there's not a huge lift from the individual business owner?”
During his tenure, Kurland said that the Commission has focused on increased communication with business owners, and he used the meeting to advertise its State of the Scituate Business Community Survey, which asks business owners how the town can support them.
“That last part of that communication from you up to the folks that we are advising is another muscle that we're learning how to flex,” he said. “We're trying to make sure we get anecdotal data, and then we're able to turn it into an actionable set of initiatives.”
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