The sudden hush over local parks and pools, spike in pedestrian traffic and lines of yellow buses can only mean one thing: School is back in session.

“I’m looking forward to having the building full of the students’ energy again after a quiet summer,” said Needham High School principal Aaron Sicotte. “Each year is a new opportunity and a fresh start for everyone, and it’s exciting to see students take full advantage of that each fall.”

“We are so excited to have our students back!” echoed Pollard Middle School principal Tamatha Bibbo.

Before students hit the hallways on Wed., Sept. 2, Needham Public Schools’ leaders spent the summer preparing for the major goals and projects that will mark the 2026–2027 school year.

“It’s an exciting year for us at the elementary level because we are finally implementing our new literacy curriculum, ARC, which is the culmination of a several year literacy review and pilot,” said Mitchell Elementary School principal Greg Bayse.

Professional development over the summer prepared teachers to implement the first units this coming fall. Bayse added that teachers are also learning new assessment methods to accompany the literacy program and new teaching modalities.

Bayse noted the elementary schools will also focus on deepening teachers’ data analysis and response skills, and will be taking a closer look at data that indicates students’ sense of belonging.

“We are asking ourselves the hard questions about how our community works for everybody in pursuit of our vision,” said Bayse, adding, “Needham has made great strides and progress in that area, but there are still people who feel disenfranchised … So how do we continue to draw the circle wider?” 

Pollard Middle School hosted community meetings in June, July and August centered around the ongoing Pollard Project. Needham secured approval for schematic designs and a pledge for up to $80.6 million in reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority on Aug. 26. The project team is now turning their attention to November’s general election, where a majority vote will decide if the Pollard Project will have the local dollars it needs to move forward.

In the upcoming school year, NPS will continue implementing Canvas as its primary online Learning Management System, despite a security scare in May. Canvas will take the place of Google Classroom as the tool teachers will use to share materials and capture student grades, said Sicotte. The platform will work in tandem with PowerSchool, which will continue to host official student information.

Implementing Canvas will be one of NHS’ main goals in the 2026-2027 academic year.

“Last year, teachers spent time learning the program and moving their materials into the platform,” Sicotte said. “This year, they will begin using it for assessments and materials. Next year, we will bring families in and give them access to the program and content.” 

“This work will help us streamline classroom learning and connect our student work to our Portrait of a Needham Graduate,” said High Rock principal Jessica Downey.

The Portrait of a Needham Graduate, NPS’ educational framework, will continue to be the north star for projects in the upcoming year. Bayse noted that, at the elementary level, NPS leaders will be considering how to connect the Portrait of a Needham Graduate to the “day-to-day” of academic life.

More than projects and milestones, NPS leaders are looking forward to welcoming the students who will join their school communities for the upcoming academic year.

“We can’t wait to welcome our new High Rock students, guide their transition into middle school, and build a strong, supportive community together,” said Downey.

“Our core value statement emphasizes that Needham High School is a ‘caring community striving for personal growth and academic excellence,’” Sicotte said. “We will make sure each student feels that caring community every day as they pursue their own growth and achieve success in their classes. Students should get involved, give it their all and leave their mark on NHS as they have an outstanding high school experience. We’ve got their back as they do!”

NPS superintendent Dan Gutekanst noted that, apart from a few late buses, the first day of school was “superb.” “Our faculty and staff have been busy preparing for weeks for students to arrive, and they were excited to greet students as soon as they walked through the doors,” he said. “I visited all of the schools and several classrooms today and saw eager students at every level ready to learn.” 

“Our nutrition services staff prepared fresh and healthy meals at each school, and students at High Rock told me they could not believe the good food choices!” Gutekanst added. “It’s been a great day.”

This week, Charlene Smith begins contributing a gardening column to the Observer. Originally from South Africa, Charlene lived and worked as a correspondent on four continents before landing in Needham six years ago. You’ll find her articles to be as wide-ranging as her life and interests. She’s a Massachusetts Master Gardener, a British accredited landscape designer and co-chair of the horticultural committee of the Needham Garden Club.

Early September feels like standing at a small rail station; summer and the haze it places on our brains lingers. Down the track we see life’s demands as a train approaching, with many stops ahead before year’s end.

The first stop is Labor Day, a brief lull in back-to-school and increased traffic — and the day I’ll bottle the dandelion wine that’s been fermenting in a closet for four months. It will be stored with homemade nasturtium jelly, herb jelly, parsley wine (not great, I use it for marinades), and elderberry wine, which eases winter colds and coughs and develops a rich, port-like quality. In the fridge is a zucchini and ginger jam, an ancient English elderberry sauce called Pontack, elderberry syrup, dried tomatoes, pureed tomatoes, Sicilian preserved tomatoes — so many tomatoes — and my annual green tomato chutney, as well as the nasturtium capers friends want more of. 

Summer’s bounty allows me to zone out as I dry, chop, simmer, bottle, preserve.

By Indigenous People’s day many of us have the last BBQs. Keen gardeners order bulbs or add them to beds. I’ll plant my haul of tulip bulbs dug up from Massachusetts Horticultural Elm Bank gardens, a member perk, in May. Among them, to deter the squirrels and bunnies, I plant the garlic bulbs I get from independent farmers at MassHort’s Elm Bank New England Flower Show starting in September. These bulbs produce the tastiest, biggest and best storage garlic. I weave narcissi among the tulips to create a second buffer zone against furry foes with thorny stems from pruned roses. Once tulips emerge in spring, I put wire cloches over them until the flowers bud.

I’ll buy handmade pots at that Flower Show and perhaps eat my last lobster roll of the season.

The next stop is Halloween, pumpkin-carving and perhaps a chance to save some seed for planting next year. Afterward, place pumpkins in your compost or the food recycling bins at the Needham Recycling and Transfer Station.

Veterans Day on Nov. 11 may find me volunteering at one of the gardens at veterans’ hospitals across Boston. Last time, I visited the Bedford hospital where we worked in a large greenhouse. Many veterans are mentally and/or physically incapacitated from war. There are victims of the Agent Orange herbicide we sprayed tons of over Vietnam. Winds carried the lethal toxins, causing serious illness and killing more than 300,000 U.S. troops, according to the North Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs. That’s almost five times as many as those who died in combat. A further 3.8-million suffer ailments from Agent Orange ranging from skin diseases to cancers, diabetes, Parkinson’s, cardiac illnesses and more. The men at the Bedford Hospital gardened with such tenderness.

Gardens, including the Royal Chelsea Flower Show in London, are nowadays often attached to hospitals as deliberate therapeutic devices. The Royal Chelsea Hospital has, since 1692, been a home and hospital for war veterans and first hosted the flower show in 1913.

Richard Thompson, past president of Britain’s Royal College of Physicians, noted that “Exposure to plants and green space, and particularly to gardening, is beneficial to mental and physical health … Health professionals should … encourage their patients … to work in gardens and should pressure local authorities to increase open spaces and the number of trees … to counteract air pollution and climate change.” He mentioned various global studies that show working in the garden creates positive EEG results, reduces stress, fear, anger and sadness, lowers blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension. “Views of plants and trees from post-operative wards improved the mood of patients, and reduced analgesic use, surgical complications and length of stay.” After having a brain tumor removed, a friend of mine was placed in a room with a view of the tree-lined Charles River at Mass General. 

By November, I apply a light scatter of leaves over my beds to create a winter mulch for plants and a home for insects. The rest of the piles I place in my compost bin; sometimes when snow is deep on the ground the heat coming off that bin is enough to warm your hands.

I scatter winter rye or hairy vetch seeds over beds to create green manure. In late spring, I rake it under or pull it out and make compost tea with the leaves; by then, it has created deep nitrogen pathways in the soil.

Thanksgiving may be the best-named holiday. An attitude of gratitude has considerable health benefits, including reducing that stress accelerator and cancer feeder: cortisol. It improves sleep and cardiovascular fitness and produces better outcomes in the ailing. I get through challenging times by each night, before I sleep, giving thanks for six things that day. They may be as small as the fact that there was sun, or rain, or that I have enough to eat, or a roof over my head; it may be that kind stranger who smiled and said hello. Thank you are important words; use them often.

Needham’s Community Council, police station and library have boxes in their foyers to collect donations for the less fortunate. Thanksgiving is a good time to share.

The last stop before winter is the brightest. Ancient people commemorated autumn’s end with harvest festivals and the bringing of light into the darker season. In my home, we celebrate what I call the three festivals of light starting with Diwali; the Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist festival of light, which is on Nov. 8 this year. I light small clay lamps to symbolize light over darkness, good over evil. The next festival of light is Hannukah, which this year will be Dec. 2, the day after World AIDs Day. I once counseled those newly diagnosed with HIV and did a lot of reporting about the disease. On that day I celebrate the many wonderful people I know with HIV, who now live long happy lives, thanks to science.

I make a butternut kugel for Hannukah and also begin wreath-making. I create an environmentally-friendly Christmas wreath with pods, cones, autumn leaves and flowers — check back with the Observer for a how-to later this year.

Traditionally, we erect and decorate our paper-tree on Dec. 12, drink eggnog, eat fruit mince pies and play Christmas carols. Tall white amaryllis bought through my garden club decorate my home. I love Christmas cooking; I mix traditional with the new. 

The journey is over, and yet we find we’re already making plans. Paraphrasing the 6th century Roman stoic Seneca: Every end is a new beginning.

It would be big news that Broadway and TV star Lauren Ambrose is coming to Needham but for one thing: She does it all the time. Decades ago, Ambrose, who will kick off the Great Hall Concert Series for 2026-27 on Sept. 19, married into one of Needham’s most civic-minded families: the Handels. Lauren, her husband, Sam Handel, and their two children are regularly in town to visit Moe and Bonnie, Sam’s parents. In conversation, Ambrose calls it home, meaning Sam’s family’s home. 

“We live in a rural place (in western Mass.),” Ambrose said, “so when we’re home at Sam’s, we get to walk places. My daughter is very excited about the idea that one can walk to a Starbucks. She can’t believe it.”

Starbucks, food from Gianni’s, a shout-out to New Garden (“New Garden, awesome,” Ambrose said) — Ambrose and Handel know Needham. “We moved here when I was 10,” said Sam Handel, who has his own creative career as a writer and producer. He said the first thing that impressed him was Little League. “We paraded on the 4th of July, which I had never seen before.”

It’s all a break from Ambrose’s professional life, which has seen her star on Broadway as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” (Tony nomination) and a television trajectory from a breakout young actress in “Six Feet Under” to the lead in the psychological horror series, “Servant.” Since 2023, she has been in another intense psychological series, “Yellowjackets,” on Showtime.

But it’s not psychological horror she will offer the Needham audience this month — it’s her extraordinary singing, a trained-but-approachable voice that made her a fitting heir to Julie Andrews. She may be one of the only Great Hall performers who has attended other Great Hall concerts — Moe, her father-in-law, is on the board.

The concert will be something new for Ambrose. “I don’t really do this,” she said. “I was in a band for a while singing gypsy jazz and I’ve sung on Broadway, but this is a different kind of thing for me. I probably would not have the ego required except for the fact that this is for Needham and for Bonnie and Moe.”

Was there arm-twisting involved? “There was a fairly firm twist for about 13 years,” she admitted. “But when it actually started to come together, Moe recused himself from the process.” She had long wanted to do it, she said, but she could never commit to a date because of looming professional obligations. “This time I’m just starting to rehearse a play (‘The Unbelievers,’ by Nick Payne), so I knew exactly where I would be and that I could get a day off to do the concert.” She and her Grammy nominated pianist, Matt Cusson, have been putting together the program.

“As an actor, there are so many things that almost happen, but you end up having to leave to go to a different job or whatever it is. So when something does come together, it’s often a miracle.”

As for fame, Ambrose said it’s all relative — or, in Needham, all relatives. On the streets of town, she said, many more people recognize and waylay her in-laws than their television-star family member. “Everybody knows Moe,” she said. “And I’ve been in the grocery store with Bonnie (a retired M.D. who had a local practice) where people chase her down to ask embarrassing medical questions or get medical advice in the produce aisle. So it’s no contest.”

The Planning Board has approved Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham’s plan to raze a pair of 100-year old commercial buildings on the south side of Oak Street and replace them with a 39-car valet parking site.

While the lot will address an immediate hospital need by providing additional patient parking capacity, the site’s projected long-term use of the property is tied to the hospital’s far more ambitious Campus Transformation Plan, which hospital representatives described to the board.

Under that plan, the hospital intends to significantly enhance its operations with a new ambulatory care facility on the opposite side of Chestnut Street from the hospital.  The new building will augment or introduce facilities for surgery, a women’s health center, primary care, a digestive health center and behavioral health services.

BID-Needham has been buying smaller lots to assemble a building site bordered by Oak Street and Chestnut Place from north to south and from Chestnut Street to the commuter rail tracks from east to west.

After the parking lot approval vote, BID-Needham President John Fogarty, along with hospital attorney Tim Sullivan, provided a broad overview of the expansion plan.

The plan was initially unveiled in the fall of 2024 when BID announced the launch of a $40 million capital campaign.  At that time, BID described the fundraising effort as a “multi-year philanthropic campaign to support BID-Needham’s bold vision for the future.” Sullivan noted that the plan, while well advanced, has not been finalized.

“This is a discussion about a plan in the abstract, not a site plan,” Sullivan told the board.

Taking the lead, Fogarty said he would “talk about why we’re doing this, why we think it’s good for the hospital, why we think it benefits the town, and also to talk a little bit about the vision of the project.”

Fogarty began with a chart quantifying the hospital’s dramatic growth in the past decade — including a 139% increase in annual patients, a 136% increase in inpatient beds and an 88% increase in emergency room visits. 

“Growth is a good thing,” he said. “But we are getting within eyesight of capacity and the hospital really is going to need to pursue an expansion.”

Fogarty explained the multitude of factors fueling the hospital’s growth, including the increasing suburbanization of healthcare in greater Boston. He expects the collaborative effort of Beth Israel and Dana Farber on cancer treatment to produce “a spillover effect in Needham where those providers and people who are living in this community would prefer getting their cancer surgery at Needham.”

Closer to home, the loss of Norwood Hospital has increased ER visits to BID-Needham. As the closest hospital to Norwood, BID now receives more cases from communities such as Norwood, Walpole, Canton, Foxboro, Wrentham and Sharon.

Fogarty indicated the hospital undertook a thorough operational review before deciding on the five service lines targeted for expansion. “We just have some heavy lifting to put the specific spaces together and we’re meeting on a weekly basis to try to bring some more definition to that,” he said.

The plan will face a rigorous regulatory review via the state department of Public Health’s Determination of Need process. A healthcare facility generally cannot undertake a “substantial capital expenditure” for construction or make a “substantial change in services” without DPH determining that there is a need for it.

Locally, it will require special permits from the Planning Board that could require expansion of the Chestnut Street Medical Overlay District as well as addressing issues related to building height, setbacks from neighboring properties and parking and traffic impacts.

“Obviously the logical question is ‘if the hospital’s doing great and has to expand, where does it go?’,” said Sullivan.

The hospital has been active in the local real estate market in creating a site for the expansion to occur. According to town property records, it has acquired multiple parcels over the past several years in anticipation of the need to expand.

It purchased the two commercial buildings that will be home to the valet lot, paying $975,000 for the 4,800-square-foot building at 14 Oak St. and $825,000 for the 5,660-square-foot building at 20 Oak St.

On Freeman Place, a private way that runs parallel to Oak, the hospital paid a combined $8.6 million in three separate transactions in 2024 and 2025 for the properties at numbers 20, 30 and 40 Freeman.

New building, new zoning

Chestnut Street, with its medical overlay zoning district and other recent rezonings, offers a certain level of flexibility, although the medical overlay zone would need to be extended to apply to the opposite side of Chestnut Street.

“There’s always been historically this patchwork of zoning,” said Planning Board Chair Justin McCullen. “I would say that a medical overlay district should be a medical overlay district for both sides of the street.” 

Sullivan said the hospital has a preferred timeline to execute the zoning changes.

“The target would be to be on the spring town meeting (warrant),” he said, which would require having the public hearing process completed before spring. “So, we know we have to move quickly, but that’s the goal.”

“This is a big box to think about,” said board member Oscar Mertz.

”I’m sure we would all be amenable and this town would be amenable to discussing what’s the best solution for everybody here, because it’s a big footprint and you guys have to really operate as seamlessly as you can,” Mertz added.

Hospital officials were not available to discuss the project, but Fogarty did offer a statement:

“BID Needham has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, and we are excited about the opportunity to expand the care and services we can provide to patients right here in the community. We are still very early in the planning process, and over the coming year we look forward to working closely with town leaders and the broader Needham community as the plans take shape.”

Come winter, the Hickory Club hopes to be Needham’s newest private club — and unlike any other. The Hickory Club’s application to the Planning Board describes itself as a “first class private indoor golf facility,” and after two appearances before the Needham Planning Board, the first in July and the second in August, its plans were approved by a unanimous vote on Sept. 1. The club will be located at 117 Kendrick St. in a building owned by the commercial real estate firm Bulfinch, which also leases space to the co-working firm Workbar. 

If things go according to plan, in a Needham neighborhood that once bottled Coca-Cola and made Polaroid products, golfers will be honing their skills in posh surroundings on virtual courses in the U.S., U.K., Japan, the Bahamas and other top flight links around the world. 

At a July 28 public hearing, the Hickory Club’s attorney, Charles Le Ray, told the Planning Board that the club will have “indoor practice areas, simulators, short game practice areas and a sand bunker.” The club’s website says it will also offer coaching, massage, sauna, cold plunge and a bar and lounge.

Co-founder Sam Yarosh said, “Nowhere in Massachusetts can you find a place like we’ve conceived of here. It will be a draw for communities surrounding Needham.” Yarosh anticipates a membership of 300-320. 

Yarosh told the planning board that the club would be staffed from approximately 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. but “ideally we would support use outside of those hours.” Planning Board member Artie Crocker said his biggest concern was what was happening after hours, especially with members and their guests who bring alcohol.

Yarosh cited other towns in Massachusetts that allow 24-hour access to golf simulators and said entry would be credentialed, visitors would be registered and members would be bound by a code of conduct. 

The Planning Board also expressed concern with inadequate parking and with insufficient planning in regard to the food and beverage service. 

At the July meeting, Planning Board member Adam Block questioned whether the proposed business was essentially a video game establishment. “Video gaming is prohibited, and all of your business, other than going to a gym, is a video business,” Block said. 

Yarosh said that golf practice areas are not an arcade but part of an athletic training facility. Le Ray said it should be classified as an indoor exercise facility under the bylaw.

The video Block referred to is the display screen on the 14 planned Trackman golf simulators. According to the Trackman website, the simulator’s base software package uses immersive graphics to recreate the layout of 70 top-rated courses around the world. Although Yarosh would not specify which Trackman model or software package the Hickory Club would adopt, he told the Observer, “Trackman provides the premier experience on the market and they’re trusted by every top player on the planet and the PGA Tour.”

Addressing the parking concerns, Le Ray said that the one parking space requirement per 150 square feet of interior space was not needed for this facility. “It’s probably appropriate for a Planet Fitness” but Le Ray said that this club will have less dense usage. “Occupancy will always be controlled by a reservation system.”

Its first shot at approval ended in the rough, but its second appearance at the Planning Board resulted in a successful approach shot and an easy tap in. The Hickory Club provided a parking study and satellite images of the parking lots at different times. The 707 spaces were never more than half full. 

Neither the building commissioner nor fire department raised any concerns with the proposal. There was only one other speaker at the public hearing, Colin Corkery of Needham, who also supported the proposal. Greg Reibman, president of the Charles River Regional Chamber, also submitted a letter in favor of the plan.

After receiving supplemental data on parking and on the food and beverage service, the entire Planning Board expressed its unanimous support at the Aug. 25 meeting. 

Chair Justin McCullen said, “This is a novel idea that would really add to our community of businesses in Needham.”

Block said that all of his concerns had been adequately addressed. 

The Hickory Club hasn’t finished its round of Needham board meetings yet. Approval of a liquor license has to be granted by the Select Board.

There was little drama in the two Congressional races on Tuesday’s Needham ballot, as U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and Fourth District U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss both registered landslide margins of victory in their Democratic primaries.

By contrast, the seven-candidate race to succeed retiring Democrat Michael Morrissey as Norfolk County District Attorney was not decided until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, with Djuna Perkins of Dedham grinding out a 2,500-vote win over runner-up Adam Deitch.

The election drew 7,650 voters in Needham, a respectable 30% turnout for a September primary. An overwhelming 87% of locals chose to vote in the Democratic primary as opposed to the Republican primary.

The GOP ballot featured only one competitive race, the gubernatorial campaign between Michael Minogue and Brian Shortsleeve. Minogue registered a 671-294 win locally, which was on par with his statewide 3-to-1 margin over Shortsleeve.

The Democratic ballot, on the other hand, showed the potential for more competitive races, although only one materialized.

While pre-election polls showed Markey with a healthy lead, his nearly 30% statewide margin over U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton was not widely expected. Needham was a bit of an anomaly in this race, with Markey outpolling Moulton by only 300 votes in gaining his 52%-48% edge in Needham.

Auchincloss, on the other hand, was dominant throughout the Fourth District as he nearly tripled the total of his challenger, political newbie Jason Poulos of Sherborn. Auchincloss overwhelmed Poulos in Needham, gathering 82.3% of the local vote.

The Norfolk County D.A. race drew not just local and regional interest but also national attention. The office’s handling of the Karen Read murder trial and other controversial cases were major issues and contributed to Morrissey stepping aside after 16 years in office.

Perkins, who launched her campaign more than two years ago, ended up topping the ticket in a race that featured a sharp north-south voting disparity. Perkins polled especially well in the northern and western portion of the district while holding her own in the county’s South Shore population centers of Quincy, Braintree and Weymouth.

Perkins achieved her largest margins of victory in the cluster of Dedham (where she lives), Brookline, Needham and Wellesley, building a cumulative 5,075 vote advantage over Deitch in those four towns. This allowed her to survive less robust totals in the large South Shore communities.

Countywide, she topped the ticket in more than half of the county’s 28 municipalities in what effectively proved to be a two-candidate race between Perkins (30.5%) and Deitch (27.6%). Third-place finisher Gregory Connor was the only other candidate in double digits with a handful of precincts remaining to be counted.

Perkins will advance to the November general election where she will face an independent candidate, Joseph Pagliarulo. There was no Republican candidate for the office.

Early preparations have begun for a major water infrastructure project that is expected to take 14 years to complete.

Needham is one of seven communities that will be impacted by construction for Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s Metropolitan Water Tunnel Program — a program that will add two new water supply tunnels to a system that provides more than 3 million people across eastern Massachusetts with clean drinking water.

Although the project is two years out from its official start date, MWRA confirmed in an Aug. 11 meeting with Needham’s Select Board that prep work will begin in earnest this coming spring. 

Tunnel preparations to-date include a closed-circuit television condition assessment of utilities in proximity to the project site, test borings to study subsurface conditions, and electrical upgrades from Eversource that will support tunnel boring operations. Conversations now center around construction of a dewatering drainage line, set to begin in spring 2027 and last through spring 2028.

In the South tunnel, 1,250 feet of 36-inch pipeline will be installed as a permanent drainage system for groundwater that will seep in during construction. The pipeline will run underground from I-95 to the Charles River, through Brook Road, Arlington Road and Charles Street.

Near I-95, the drainage system will be built through a trenchless construction method called pipe jacking, which uses special machines to push pipes through the ground from a launch shaft to avoid heavy digging and traffic disruption.

“We are anticipating this work will be done during the day,” said David Abt, design manager for the tunnel department.

The rest of the system will be installed through cut and cover construction: digging a trench, building a structure inside it, then backfilling to restore soil on top. 

“We will construct this in stages to reduce our footprint and our impact on the surrounding area, with discussions between DPW, engineering and the police,” Abt said. “And given it’s a dense commercial area, we think night work would be the least impactful to abutters,” he explained of the pipeline portion running beneath Needham streets.

The crew will also replace the town’s aging clay pipe sewage systems that cross over with the new drainage system. Paul Savard, acting director for the tunnel redundancy program, added there will be no sewer service interruptions for customers downstream of the work.

Select Board chair Heidi Frail voiced concern around the project’s potential impact on Needham residents.

“This is a reasonably small area, both with commercial customers and residential neighborhoods just outside the perimeter,” Frail said. “I’m not really sure on the scale of disruption these machines will cause.”

“It’s typical pipeline construction in the streets,” Savard responded, noting the majority of construction abutting residential neighborhoods and commercial businesses will happen at nighttime to ensure minimal disruption. 

Savard termed the pipeline and similar prep projects “early enabling work,” or pieces of construction that need to be done ahead of the large tunnel construction.

The 15 miles of deep, hard-rock pressure tunnels will add redundancy to the Metropolitan Tunnel System, intentionally duplicating important parts to avoid service interruptions and system shutdowns when future maintenance needs or emergencies come up.

The water supply system has operated without a backup since the Quabbin Reservoir was completed in 1939.

“There are a couple incidences that happened in the past, back in May of 2010 and more recently in 2024, that brought [to our attention] the need for redundancy to the city tunnel system,” Savard noted to the Select Board, adding the tunnel program was prompted by a water main break in 2010 that resulted in a boil water order.

“The main point here is that we want to make sure we provide uninterrupted delivery of our high-quality water to the communities that we serve, at any time of the year, without any service interruptions,” he said.

The tunnels will begin in Weston on I-90 and I-95. The North tunnel, expected to be 5 miles long, will end in Waltham. The South tunnel, expected to be 10 miles long, will end in Mattapan. Needham will be directly affected by the longer South tunnel, which will be constructed with tunnel boring machines based at the I-95 Highland Avenue interchange. Two large shafts will be created via controlled blasting to lower the boring machines underground.

“When that tunnel gets constructed, all the material that comes out gets loaded onto trucks and taken away,” said Savard.

Needham’s proximity to the highway will enable construction trucks to rotate through more easily with excavated materials from tunnel construction.

Notices have been and will continue to be distributed to abutters as the MWRA tunnel project progresses.