The Capital Plan

Beverly's annual budget covers day-to-day city operations. But there is a parallel set of obligations: buildings, roads, water systems, and equipment that require large, one-time investments the operating budget cannot absorb. The city finances these through long-term borrowing, and the debt service is growing.

What is the Capital Plan?

The City Charter requires the Mayor to submit a Capital Expenditure Plan to the City Council each year. The 2025 Draft Capital Improvement Plan, submitted in January 2025, identifies capital needs across all city departments over the next ten years.

The plan is a planning document. No project in it can proceed without a separate City Council vote to authorize borrowing or spending. Projects are typically financed through long-term bonds, with annual debt service payments built into the General Fund. The city also uses free cash reserves and state or federal grants where available.

Capital projects are categorized under two funds. The General Fund covers city buildings, roads, schools, vehicles, and public safety facilities. Enterprise Funds cover the Water Division, Sewer Division, and Beverly Golf and Tennis Club, which are intended to be self-sustaining through user fees. Debt service for enterprise projects is the obligation of those funds, not the General Fund.

The projects

The table below lists all identified projects and their estimated costs as of the 2025 plan. Many estimates are preliminary. Several are listed as TBD because cost assessments have not yet been completed.

General Fund
Project Est. Cost Notes
City Hall renovation $26,500,000 Includes $1–1.5M temporary relocation costs during construction. $1.5M already set aside in free cash.
Public Services Buildings (new facility) $50,000,000+ Rough preliminary estimate. Current Park Street facility is nearly 100 years old and cannot be expanded. Site has not yet been identified.
School roofs and HVAC (per building) $7,500,000 each Six elementary schools plus the high school. Roofs from 1996–2003 renovations are approaching end of useful life. MSBA reimbursement possible but uncertain.
Myles McPherson Youth Center $7,300,000 Construction began FY2025. Funded through ARPA funds, state and federal earmarks. No additional free cash or debt planned.
Beverly Golf and Tennis Club renovation $16,000,000+ Major systems overhaul. Intended to be funded through Golf and Tennis revenues, CPA funds, and grants, but full cost likely exceeds what the enterprise fund can support.
Lynch Park Carriage House $7,000,000–$10,000,000 Two-phase reconstruction. Funding mix: state historic preservation grants, CPA funds, Recreation Enterprise Fund, and General Fund debt.
Senior Center (exterior envelope and HVAC) $3,000,000 Window and door replacement, weatherization, and full HVAC replacement. Expected within 2–4 years.
Annual road and sidewalk paving $3,000,000–$4,000,000/yr Combination of city appropriation, free cash, gas tax revenue, and grants (Complete Streets, MassWorks).
North Beverly and Beverly Farms fire station roofs $2,500,000+ Roof replacements planned within 5 years. Heat pump installation to follow.
Fire pumper truck $850,000+ New Ferrara pumper ordered in FY2024. Engine 3 replacement anticipated around FY2027.
Public Services vehicles $580,000/yr Ongoing annual equipment replacement: one-ton trucks, medium-duty trucks, front-end loaders, backhoes.
Public safety communications equipment $500,000 Dispatch and radio infrastructure serving police, fire, and DPW. Many components no longer manufacturer-supported.
Fuel depot replacement $650,000 Serves all city vehicles. Work going to bid.
Salt shed roof $175,000
GAR Hall painting $75,000 Facade restoration completed; paint showing wear.
Upgrading of key intersections TBD Dunham Road / Rte. 128 interchange design approved at $850K in FY2024. Brimbal/Dunham roundabout construction estimated at $7M.
Parking infrastructure TBD Downtown and waterfront lots. $2M BAN outstanding on recently purchased Bow/Federal St. lot.
City cemeteries TBD Fencing replacement and Cole Street cemetery buildout. Three active cemeteries nearing capacity.
Bass River dredging Unknown Two-phase project. Significant logistical challenges; feasibility study underway for ocean disposal site.
Coastal parks and resources TBD Seawall and shoreline work at Lynch Park, Obear Park, and Dane Street Beach. Grant funding being pursued.
Bookmobile TBD Replacement vehicle needed within 5–10 years.
Enterprise Funds (Water, Sewer)
Project Est. Cost Notes
Water meter replacement (citywide) $8,000,000 All city water meters are over 20 years old. New system enables real-time leak detection. Requires separate loan authorization.
Sewer system evaluation and rehabilitation $2,500,000–$3,000,000/yr DEP-mandated work on 25 sewer subsections. Current annual appropriation is $1.7M, below the required pace.
Dane Street sewer line $3,000,000–$5,000,000 Key sewer line runs under Dane and Independence Park beaches. High priority: failure consequences are severe.
Folly Hill water tower recoating $2,000,000 Interior and exterior recoating needed within 5 years. Debt obligation of the water fund.
Citywide water main replacement $1,000,000/yr Beverly has about 200 miles of water pipe. Industry standard is to replace 1% per year.
Sewer pump station improvements $500,000/yr + $400,000 one-time 35 stations in operation. Two stations need immediate overhaul; $400K appropriation likely needed.
Water and sewer vehicles $350,000/yr Ongoing equipment replacement for water and sewer operations.
Citywide gate valve replacement $200,000/yr Nearly 4,000 valves in the water system, some over 100 years old. About 50 replacements per year at $4,000 each.
Pershing Ave pump station TBD Building envelope repairs complete. Pumping equipment nearing end of service life; design estimate in progress.
MS4 stormwater mandates $300,000+/yr Federally mandated stormwater quality program. Full cost still being scoped by consultants.
Drainage repairs and extensions $100,000–$150,000/yr Small drainage improvement projects constructed by DPS crews.
Brook drainage maintenance $50,000/yr Clearing and maintaining brooks in flood-prone areas.
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The debt picture

The General Fund currently carries about $7.1 million in annual debt service, roughly 5.5% of the General Fund budget. If the projects in this plan are financed through borrowing as proposed, that figure is projected to reach approximately $16 million per year by FY2034, or about 7% of the budget.

Source: City of Beverly 2025 Draft Capital Expenditure Plan, General Fund Debt Schedule. Figures include both principal and interest on existing and proposed borrowing. FY2025 total debt service used as baseline.

Two pressures, one revenue source. Debt service and the operating deficit both draw from the same place: property tax revenue capped at 2.5% annual growth by Proposition 2½. A dollar committed to paying off bonds is a dollar unavailable for operating expenses, and vice versa. Beverly is managing both pressures simultaneously: a structural operating deficit that grows each year and a capital borrowing plan that will roughly double annual debt service payments by FY2034.

The city's own planning targets suggest debt service above 7–8% of the General Fund budget creates affordability pressure. The projected trajectory approaches that threshold.

Deferred maintenance is not free

Capital investment is not optional. It is a necessary cost of maintaining the infrastructure Beverly residents depend on. The alternative, deferring maintenance, does not eliminate the cost. It increases it.

Beverly's roads illustrate this directly. Years of underfunding left 160 miles of roadway in declining condition. Catching up now requires spending $3–4 million per year, plus one-time free cash transfers, plus grant funding, all at construction costs that are significantly higher than they would have been if investment had been steadier. The same dynamic applies to aging buildings, outdated water mains, and equipment running well past its useful life.

The 2025 Capital Plan represents an effort to plan ahead rather than react: to understand the full scope of what Beverly owns, what it will cost to maintain it, and how to sequence those investments within the city's financial capacity.

What is not in the numbers yet

Several projects in the plan carry estimates listed as "TBD" or "unknown." These are real future obligations. They simply do not have reliable cost estimates yet. They are not included in the debt projections above.

Source: City of Beverly 2025 Draft Capital Expenditure Plan (PDF), submitted by Mayor Michael P. Cahill to the City Council, January 30, 2025. Cost figures and debt service projections are drawn directly from the plan. All figures are preliminary estimates subject to change as projects are scoped and designed. Open Beverly has not independently verified individual cost estimates.