South Boston beach remains closed after $31.2M renovation; residents boil

Southie residents are steaming over the $31.2 million renovation of the Curley Center.

As temperatures soar, residents can’t cool off behind the new digs at the L Street Beach, as its called.

It looks like the beach will stay closed for at least the next week, if not longer, as the city’s Conservation Commission still needs to approve a beach operation and management plan that the state has already signed off on.

The commission is scheduled to meet July 19, and City Councilor At-Large Erin Murphy says officials have not responded to a request for an emergency hearing to expedite the opening.

If the commission held a meeting earlier than next Wednesday, the beach could reopen shortly after, Murphy told the Herald on Tuesday. But a city spokesperson refuted that claim, saying the threatened piping plover bird species continues to stand in the way of access.

Murphy requested the emergency meeting in a letter last week to Conservation Commission Executive Director Elena Itämeri. The councilor’s plea came the same day as MassWildlife approved the beach management plan, determining “the project will not result in an adverse impact” to the piping plover.

Boston Centers for Youth and Families reopened the Curley last month after a three-year closure and renovation.

“My ask was, ‘Hey, this is extenuating circumstances. It’s July. It’s summer. We have a renovated community center. We have a community that’s waited years for this to reopen. Why wait?,” Murphy told the Herald. “The summer is so short, anyway. Two weeks is a big deal when you only have so many weeks of summer.”

Everose Schluter, MassWildlife’s assistant director of its natural heritage and endangered species program, said the agency has determined beach operations will occur within the piping plover’s habitat. But if the city meets conditions submitted in the beach management plan, there will be no adverse effect on the threatened beach-nesting bird species, she said.

“This determination is a final decision of the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife,” Schluter wrote.

A city spokesperson, however, said Conservation Commission approval of the plan would “help minimize the impacts of human activity on nesting piping plovers,”

“When wildlife officials determine we can use the beach and how we can safely, we look forward to welcoming the public-use as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said, adding the city is working with the state “to create a plan that ensures this is not a recurring closure in future summers.”

State Sen. Nick Collins, Rep. David Biele, Murphy and fellow councilors Michael Flaherty and Ed Flynn urged “expeditious action” from the city to submit the plan by June 21, a deadline that officials missed before sending it June 30.

“While State officials are committed to supporting the City of Boston if any assistance is needed, on-site signage falsely suggesting that the state is somehow holding up the process should be removed,” they wrote in a letter to the chiefs of human services, operations and environment. “Regardless, the ball is in the City’s court.”