For most of its life, the building at 187 Upper County Road was open for only part of the year. Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel was a seasonal mission church of Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich. It filled up in summer and sat quiet the rest of the year, behind a wide spread of asphalt at the corner of Sea Street.
This fall the asphalt starts coming up. The Town of Dennis announced on October 20 that construction of Port Side Community Park would begin the following week, with completion expected by next summer. A property that once served summer visitors is being rebuilt for the neighbors around it, and the work is happening in the quiet off-season months.
A chapel built for August
The sources differ slightly on the chapel's start date. A town planning staff report says the church was built in 1950, and the Cape Cod Times dates its start as a seasonal mission church to 1953. Both put it in the early 1950s. The parish stopped using it during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it had been empty since 2020.
When the Diocese put the land up for sale, the town negotiated the price down from $2.6 million to $2.3 million. At a special Town Meeting on February 29, 2024, voters approved the purchase 243 to 18, as the Cape Cod Times reported. Demolition was underway by October 30, 2024.
The purchase came with a perpetual-use restriction that allowed several futures for the land: affordable housing, open space and recreation, parking, or some combination of them. The town's plan puts open space and recreation first.
Parking was on the table, and it got the smallest share
Downtown Dennis Port has a parking problem, and town staff said so directly. In a November 14, 2024 review recounted in a June 2026 town staff report, they asked how much parking the park needed, "if any," and whether the site "should be part of the solution to the bigger DP parking problem." A large, already paved lot in the middle of the village was an obvious place for more cars.
The design went the other way. According to the June 15, 2026 Planning Board minutes, Town Engineer Tom Andrade described three main goals: remove the existing impervious asphalt, create accessible green space, and restore a degraded wetland in the southwest corner of the property. Parking ended up as a 35-space ADA-compliant lot, one piece of a site that otherwise becomes grass, paths, courts and native plantings.
That direction came from the neighborhood. The Dennis Port/West Dennis Advancement Committee held public outreach meetings, surveyed residents, and drew up several concept plans. When town staff reviewed those ideas in 2024, they wrote in the same report that a loop trail was "universally desired by all." Their suggestions included fitness stations, an age-friendly design, and education kiosks about the wetlands and Dennis Port history. Those early suggestions were starting points, and the plans changed over the next two years.
Two and a half years, start to shovel
The project has needed several Town Meeting votes, and each one moved it a step forward:
- February 29, 2024. A special Town Meeting approved buying the land for $2.3 million.
- 2024. The Advancement Committee held meetings and surveyed residents.
- October 30, 2024. Demolition of the chapel was underway.
- April 2025. The Select Board approved a preferred concept plan.
- October 21, 2025. A special Town Meeting set aside $275,000 for an owner's project manager and design services.
- January 2026. The town hired Horsley Witten Group to design the preferred plan and estimate its costs.
- June 15, 2026. The 75% design went to the Planning Board.
- September 22, 2026. Six bids came in, and Robert Our of Harwich won with a bid of $2,014,697.06.
- October 6, 2026. Voters unanimously approved Community Preservation funding at a special Town Meeting.
The town put the project out to bid before the October vote on purpose. That way voters were approving a firm construction cost, not an estimate. The vote was unanimous.
What Phase 1 puts on the ground
The park is being built in phases. Phase 1 creates the park and leaves room for additions later. Between the June design presentation and the town's October announcement, the plan includes:
- A basketball court surfaced with porous asphalt so rain soaks through instead of running off
- Playing fields and multi-use play areas
- An accessible walking path looping around the site, also in porous asphalt
- Upgraded sidewalks connecting to Sea Street and Depot Street
- Picnic areas with benches and a game table
- Bicycle racks and water stations
- Native landscaping and restoration of the wetland in the southwest corner
- A 35-space ADA-compliant parking lot in conventional asphalt
- Space set aside for future buildout
Stormwater will be handled with bioretention areas, infiltration basins and underground infiltration chambers. On a lot that was almost entirely pavement, that makes a big difference. The June minutes say site lighting came up only briefly, so lighting details may still be settled during construction.
A park built in the off-season
The chapel's calendar ran from summer to summer. This project runs the other way. Crews were scheduled to start in late October, work through the months when Sea Street is quiet, and aim to finish by next summer. If you live near Upper County Road, you'll see the site change all winter, while the restaurant patios are empty and the beach lots are closed.
It won't be the only work in Dennis Port this season. The town's October 22 wastewater update, which it calls a projected schedule, has sewer work starting on Route 28 from Uncle Barney's Road to just east of Ferry Street the week of November 2. School Street, Allain Way and Kelly's Way follow the week of November 9. Crews work 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, with police details and detours, and the town says roads will be passable at the end of each day. The town's news page posts the updated schedule each week.
The streets around the park site already have some places that stay open through the winter:
| Place | Address | Off-season status |
|---|---|---|
| Clancy's Restaurant | 8 Upper County Road | Describes itself as a four-season, year-round restaurant |
| The Rooftop at Pelham House Resort | 14 Sea Street | Listed as open year-round for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner |
| Dennis Public Library | 5 Hall Street, at Route 28 | Tuesday to Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. |
| Red Nun Bar & Grill | 673 Main Street | Trivia and live music on the calendar into mid-November |
At Pelham House, Waves Sushi & Raw Bar and the Pool House are open April through September only, so if you're walking up Sea Street this winter, The Rooftop is the one that's open.
The park's sidewalk links will tie into these same streets. Once Sea Street and Depot Street connect to a walking loop, the old chapel lot sits between them as a place to cross on foot instead of a lot to drive past. In the 2024 staff review, the low corner where Sea Street meets Upper County Road was flagged as a possible gateway to the site.
If you live in Dennis Port and want to know how projects like Port Side Community Park and this winter's sewer work affect your street, I'm glad to talk it through. I'm a Harwich native who keeps a close eye on what's changing across the Mid and Lower Cape, and I'll give you a straight answer. Reach out to Bantick Properties anytime.
