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Typically, newly planted landscaping at a building site requires several years before reaching maturity.
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The situation differs at Encore Boston Harbor, where the new HarborWalk is roughly 25 percent finished and already features trees standing 20- and 30-feet tall.
“It’s going to look spectacular,” Greg John of Encore stated. “This is going to be when you walk on the HarborWalk for the first time, it will look like it’s been there decades and it’s going to be amazing.”
The HarborWalk’s trees originate from various regions across the country, with a significant number sourced from upstate New York.
According to John, the site will ultimately contain 800 trees, many already reaching 30-feet in height. Upon planting, 55 percent of them will measure 20 feet or taller. The completed landscape will include more than 47,000 shrubs and over 50,000 flowers.
John noted that four Ficus trees were specially selected in California and will be positioned beside the Popeye sculpture upon the casino’s opening. Delivery of these trees is scheduled for later this summer.
Spanning approximately one half-mile and covering six acres of the development, the Encore HarborWalk represents a substantial landscaping undertaking.
The landscaping plan extends beyond the HarborWalk itself, John explained, continuing toward the site entrance and then onto Lower Broadway.
Another notable aspect of the HarborWalk involves the wildlife returning to the shore—an area that consultants had characterized as a biological desert just two years prior.
Following site cleanup and river bottom remediation, life is restoring itself to that former “desert.”
“One of the workers took a video of birds diving for fish,” John stated. “That happens a lot now and it’s definitely turned things around. Prior to our clean up and remediation, every day contamination leaked into the water. When we cleaned it up, we reversed 100 years of neglect and brought things back to their original conditions. There aren’t too many opportunities to do that – to reverse 100 years of neglect.”