Swampscott Seawall Collapse Shuts Down Oceanfront Restaurant

Updated 5:45 p.m.

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A popular Swampscott oceanside restaurant is closed indefinitely after a portion of the seawall beneath it collapsed on Thursday.

A section of the seawall at Mission on the Bay — under the part of the building that supports the roof deck — broke away and took with it an outdoor fence and railing at about 1:30 p.m.

Swampscott police said there were no injuries and the building was evacuated when "it was observed that debris was still sliding from underneath the restaurant."

Utilities were shut off to the building as a precaution and the stairwells to the beach were taped off, as well as the courtyard area next to the restaurant, along with a section of the Hawthorne lot nearest to the collapsed wall, police said.

"I am just grateful that nobody was injured," Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald told Patch late Thursday afternoon. "These types of catastrophes when a wall collapses are dangerous and worrisome.

"We want to encourage everyone to stay away from the seawall as we prepare to get it back to a status of good condition."

Fitzgerald said that while "the entire (section of) seawall is compromised at this point" the restaurant building itself — which is built on pylons and does not rely on the seawall for foundation support — did not appear to be in "any imminent danger."

"I did speak with the individual contractor and the owner of Mission on the Bay and we did share our concerns that stabilizing the soil under the building would be a good idea because we don't want to see any of the pylons exposed (to potential damage)," Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said that fast-drying Shock-Crete fill was already being applied to the area of the compromised seawall early Thursday evening and that a marine engineer will be brought in within the next few days to examine the rest of the seawall — which also runs under the now-town-owned adjacent property home to the Hawthorne by the Sea restaurant.

"We've had the entire emergency response team of the town out there to address the immediacy of the issue," Fitzgerald said.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)