After more than two decades of talking, sketching and waiting, a long-vacant patch of the Charles River Esplanade is finally getting a serious glow-up. The $24 million Charlesbank and Smith Family Pavilion is rising on the former Lee Pool site near the Museum of Science and is slated to open by the end of 2026. The two-acre project will bring roughly 9,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, including a café, the park’s first year-round public restrooms, community rooms and multipurpose courts.
Private donors are footing almost the entire bill. More than $23 million has already been raised, leaving about $1.5 million to close out the capital campaign. Construction kicked off last June, and the gift is being described as one of the largest private donations ever made to a state park in Massachusetts, according to The Boston Globe.
What the pavilion will include
The two-story, roughly 9,000-square-foot building, designed by Maryann Thompson Architects, is planned as a year-round front door to the park. Plans call for a staffed welcome desk, classrooms and reservable community rooms, plus a café with both indoor and outdoor seating and a roof deck looking out over the Charles. The facility will also add long-awaited year-round public bathrooms, free public Wi-Fi, multipurpose sports courts and environmental touches such as solar panels and a bioretention rain garden, as outlined by Boston.gov.
What locals can expect
Right now, the Esplanade largely shuts down its comforts as soon as the weather turns. “Right now, water and facilities are closed between mid-October and mid-April, so we’re really a six-month-of-the-year park,” Esplanade Association executive director Jen Mergel told reporters, explaining why a true four-season facility changes the game.
The two acres being revived have been fenced off since the mid-1990s. Mergel recalls swimming in the old Lee Pool, which was built in 1951 and sat unused for years before it was finally demolished in 2019. After a competitive bidding process, the Esplanade Association tapped Dorchester-based MAX Ultimate Food to run the café. Vice president Bobby Perino-Thompson said the menu will cover breakfast, lunch, coffee and smoothies, and promised that “you’re not going to get a $12 latte,” according to The Boston Globe.
Operations, funding and next steps
The Esplanade Association plans to fund and operate the Charlesbank campus for the long haul, with site maintenance and programming commitments that stretch out for decades. Construction contractor Lee Kennedy Company is posting three-week lookaheads and aerial progress shots as work moves toward the targeted late-2026 opening, and the final pieces of the capital campaign are still being assembled, per Lee Kennedy Company.
