Sandwich Marina Harborwalk: A Closer Look at Phase 1 Plans

By the last Thursday of October, the Sandwich Marina has mostly shut down for the season. The Pilot House is closed for the winter. The Cape Cod Canal Visitor Center on Ed Moffitt Drive finished its season with its last open day on Sunday, October 25. The fuel dock is open through Saturday. Boat trailers have spent most of the month moving through the lot for fall haul-outs. Walk from the boat launch toward D Dock and you are on the same strip of roadway that the marina's working traffic uses.

That strip is what the town just won money to change. On October 6, Sandwich announced it had been awarded $1,808,514 from the Commonwealth's Seaport Economic Council Grant Program for Phase 1 of the Sandwich Marina Harborwalk Master Plan. The grant came in the Healey-Driscoll administration's FY27 Community One Stop for Growth round, which totals more than $330 million statewide. The project is about one specific problem. People walking the marina share the road with boats on trailers, and the low route they walk on floods at high tide.

A walking route that runs through a working harbor

The Town of Sandwich's announcement calls the marina a "vital working waterfront." It supports commercial fishing, charter operations, recreational boating, public safety services and more than 200 slips, including commercial and transient berths. The town has run the marina since it opened in 1989. Under Army Corps of Engineers rules, no one may moor overnight at the fuel dock, because it is used overnight to fuel essential Coast Guard vessels and pilot boats. Sportfishing charters based at the marina include the Laura Jay, Tigger Too and Jackie Lu.

October is when that working side is most obvious. The Sandwich Marina posted boat ramp closures for haul-outs on September 14, 15, 24 and 25 and on October 13, 14, 22, 23 and 26. The last of those dates fell this past Monday. Each one meant boats being pulled and trailered through the same area where people walk between the restaurants and the docks.

The town says this directly. The Harborwalk "will help separate pedestrian traffic from active marina roadways and operations, improving safety during periods of high vessel and visitor activity." The announcement also says the project will improve "an existing low-lying pedestrian route that is vulnerable to high tides," and add shoreline and landscaping work aimed at long-term resilience.

The 400 feet, from one end to the other

According to CapeNews coverage of the Historic District Committee's review, the boardwalk will run along Ed Moffitt Drive between the two restaurants on that road, the Pilot House and Seafood Sam's. Cole Bateman, a structural engineer with Tighe and Bond, presented the plan. CapeNews quoted his description:

"The main portion of the project is an approximately 12-foot-wide by 400-foot-long timber frame boardwalk. Along Ed Moffitt Drive, it starts at the boat launch parking lot and then goes about 400 feet to the first dock there, which is D Dock."

Walking it from one end to the other, here is what the plans show:

1. The harbormaster's end. On the left side of the harbor, the boardwalk ends in a staircase down to a dock near the harbormaster's office.
2. The boat launch lot. The elevated walk starts at the boat launch parking area.
3. The connections. The town lists a wider sidewalk connection of about five feet, new curb cuts and accessible transitions, and better links to accessible parking. Harbormaster Nicholas Giardino told the committee a curb cut would go in where the boardwalk meets the northern part of the boatyard.
4. D Dock. On the right side, the boardwalk stops just before Little Miss Sandwich, at the small dock known as D Dock.

The town expects the Harborwalk to work as a shared-use path. The 12-foot width leaves room for that. It is more than twice the width of the improved sidewalk connection.

The yellow boat stays where it is

The fourth stop on that list matters more to most people than any curb cut. Giardino addressed it at the meeting: "That's not going to be touched. That's going to stay right there."

CapeNews has told the boat's story. Little Miss Sandwich is a 12-foot steel lifeboat built by the C.C. Galbraith Company. It had been used as a planter until marina worker Douglas Dexter restored it, and marina clerks gave it its name. Donald Spring, owner of Sandwich Ship Supply, donated it to the marina, and it was dedicated to Sandwich children who lost a parent at sea.

So the new boardwalk is planned to end right at the marina's best-known landmark and leave it untouched.

What's open along the route this week

The Harborwalk is meant to connect "the waterfront, businesses, docks and public amenities," and those amenities change a lot this time of year. Here is what each one's own posted information says heading into the last days of October:

Seafood Sam's closing notice doesn't include a year, so check with the restaurant before planning a mid-November meal around it. The pattern is still clear. Seafood Sam's sits at one end of the Phase 1 route, and through mid-November it is the main reason to walk the marina in the evening. The Pilot House, at the other end, has closed. The fuel dock is open for a few more days, and the marina office stays on weekday hours.

What has a date and what doesn't

The funding is settled. The schedule isn't. The town's announcement doesn't give a start or finish date for construction. The project has been in development since 2024. CapeNews reported that it was first conceptualized that year.

The longer plan is also still open. Bateman told the committee that this boardwalk is one phase of a larger proposal. Later phases could carry the Harborwalk to the fuel dock and add a bike path around the back of the boat parking lot. He was clear that the 400-foot section is the only phase being pursued now. The town's announcement says the same: future phases could extend the walk farther through the marina, but only Phase 1 is underway.

The town is planning a second accessible waterfront project nearby. In July 2026, Select Board minutes noted that money from the Mike Miller donation account would go toward an accessible viewing platform at the Sandwich Boardwalk, with views of Old Harbor and the Great Marsh. CapeNews reported that the platform, which overlooks osprey nests and honors the former Select Board member, won approval, and that construction would take about a week once it starts. The start date was waiting on the consulting engineer.

For now, the walk from the boat launch to D Dock is the same as it was all summer, on the same low route next to the same marina traffic. The difference is that the town now has $1,808,514 and an approved design to raise it onto timber.

Whether you walk Ed Moffitt Drive every week or are trying to understand how projects like the Harborwalk could change daily life around the marina, Shana Lundell is glad to talk through what's planned along Sandwich's waterfront. Let's Connect.