Two industrial properties on Eastern Avenue go before the public on the same evening, Thursday, November 19. The state will hold two remote hearings on a Chapter 91 waterways license for the Logan Airport employee garage planned at 111 Eastern Avenue, with written comments due December 14. Two blocks down the road, Global Partners will hold an in-person open house on a permit for its fuel terminal at 281 Eastern Avenue. Both sit on Chelsea Creek, and both 6 p.m. sessions overlap.
111 Eastern Avenue: the state’s turn
Chelsea’s Zoning Board of Appeals approved the garage in September. The next approval has to come from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, because the lot sits on filled and flowed tidelands of Chelsea Creek and Bass Creek inside the Chelsea Creek Designated Port Area. Building there needs a license under Chapter 91, the state law that governs the use of tidelands.
The applicant, UGP-PreFlight Boston, LLC, filed application 26-WW17-0001-APP. According to the public notice MassDEP’s Waterways Regulation Program posted, the project would replace a section of vertical seawall with a shoreline revetment, build a parking garage for Logan Airport employees and surface parking for Massport vehicles, and add a light-industrial warehouse building. The notice says the project has preliminarily been determined to be a nonwater-dependent use, that it is subject to the city’s approved Municipal Harbor Plan, and that the applicant is asking for a consolidated written determination under the waterways regulations.
The notice also states that the project is located in a community with an Environmental Justice population and that the notice is meant to reach that population. MassDEP published it in English and Spanish.
The hearings and the deadline
- Remote public hearings: Thursday, November 19, 2026, at 2 p.m. and again at 6 p.m., on Zoom. Advance registration is required: register for 2 p.m. or register for 6 p.m. The official notification date is November 12.
- Written comments: due Monday, December 14, 2026, by email to [email protected], or by mail to MassDEP Waterways Program, c/o Frank Taormina, 100 Cambridge St., Suite 900, Boston, MA 02114. People without email can leave a message at (617) 292-5929.
- Plans and documents: on the EEA public access portal, by searching record ID 26-WW17-0001-APP.
- Interpreters: MassDEP says it provides interpreter and translation services free of charge for documents and for the hearing; details are on its language assistance page.
The deadline carries a legal consequence. Under the notice, an aggrieved person, or a group of ten or more citizens, who does not file written comments by December 14 gives up the right to an adjudicatory hearing on the license. A ten-citizen group must include at least five residents of Chelsea.
What the city board heard, and what it did not decide
At the September zoning hearing the owners’ consultant described a six-level garage of roughly 2,400 spaces, about 62 feet tall, one level over the 50 feet allowed as of right in the port district, with a $750,000 mitigation payment to the city under a host agreement, a new traffic signal at Eastern Avenue and Bellingham Street, raised grades against sea level rise, a new stormwater system and shoreline stabilization. Massport’s employee parking would move from the garage at 270 Central Avenue to the new building, and PreFlight’s traveler parking would move the other way.
One question the zoning board could not settle was public access to the water. The owners said the existing walkway and benches near the Chelsea Street Bridge would stay and that the new work adds no public access to the shore, and that a setback along the edge could become public access if state waterways regulators require it. That is the decision now in MassDEP’s hands. The site also appeared on the Conservation Commission’s October 21 agenda for a certificate of compliance on earlier work.
281 Eastern Avenue: Global’s open house
The City of Chelsea shared a notice on its Facebook page this week that Global Partners will host a public open house on Thursday, November 19, from 6 to 8 p.m., at La Colaborativa’s Survival Center, 63 Sixth Street, to share information about a permit for its facility at 281 Eastern Avenue. The notice, posted in English and Spanish, says residents can learn about the permit, ask questions and give feedback, and that food and interpretation services will be provided. Questions go to [email protected].
The notice does not say which permit is involved or which agency issues it. Global’s own terminal page describes 281 Eastern Avenue as a barge and truck supplied terminal that moves diesel, ethanol, gasoline and heating oil through a seven-lane truck rack. The terminal has operated on Chelsea Creek for decades and is one of the fuel depots that make the creek a designated port area.
If you want to be heard
For the garage, register for one of the Zoom hearings or send a comment by December 14; a comment on the record is what preserves appeal rights. For the terminal, the open house on Sixth Street is the venue Global has offered, and the city’s post is the only public notice of it so far. Anyone who wants to attend the 6 p.m. waterways hearing and the open house will have to choose, or split the evening.