Beverly City Hall Renovation $25M-$27M Funding Request Expected In December

BEVERLY, MA — Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill told the City Council that there is an intention to seek approval for full funding of the long-planned City Hall renovation by the end of the year, allowing for construction to begin next summer on the project estimated to cost between $25 million and $27 million.

Cahill told the Council during his final quarterly capital project update prior to the November election — where he is being challenged by Councilor At-Large Brendan Sweeney — that his office is exploring downtown locations as the temporary home of City Hall during the renovation, expected to take between 18 and 24 months.

• What To Do With Beverly's Former Family Dollar Downtown Building?
• Beverly City Hall Projection Rises $2M, 'Within Reasonable Range' Of Authorization
• Beverly To 'Take' Downtown Property For $8 Million After City Council OKs Mayor's Plan

"Everyone is looking at a tighter window than that," he said of the construction timeline. "W.T. Rich (Construction Management Company) has demonstrated that they can get work done at a high quality and efficiently. So we're all looking at the lower end of that number when it comes to being out of the building and being back in.

"This all only becomes more than a conversation when if, and when, (the City Council) approves the project budget. But, assuming that we're there, we very much want City Hall operations to stay in the downtown. We have some ideas. We will need to go through a (request for proposal) process, compliant with state law, and we can't even start that process until we have a vote from you folks on the project.

"So it all kind of awaits that action."

Previous plans to move temporary City Hall operations to the former Family Dollar location, which the city obtained in 2023 for $7.399 million through a "friendly taking," along with the accompanying parking lot, were ultimately deemed unfeasible because of the amount of money it would take to fit that space for office capabilities.

The city recently held a forum on the future of that property, which was intended to be redeveloped following the possibility of hosting city workers during the renovation.

Sweeney pressed Cahill on whether the ultimate request for the renovation will remain within the $25 million and $27 million range previously presented to the Council, with Cahill saying that would be the case even if some things had to be trimmed through "value engineering."

"If those numbers don't land where we feel we need them to," Cahill said, "then we'll go back at value engineering. Value engineering is the term they use in this field for cutting things out of the project.

"Our goal is to come through with the lowest price tag that we can while we deliver on the needs of the departments and the public to make the building what it needs to be."

In other updates, Cahill said work at the McPherson Youth Center is expected to be done by the winter of 2026, and that the city is working to finalize $2.2 million in needed work to the library in a dramatically scaled-down project after the City Council last year voted down a proposed $18 million renovation that would have completely replaced the roof and HVAC system.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)