City Update with Manager Proakis - Why Watertown
- Sam Dudley
- Mar 18
- 7 min read
For the second year in a row, the WBC held a City Update for the business community in partnership with the City of Watertown and City Manager Proakis. On March 5th at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Manager Proakis presented on the current state of Watertown and an exciting look ahead for the community.
Goals
Opening with two categories of goals, Excellent, Responsive & Collaborative Municipal Operations and Vibrant & Welcoming Community, Manager Proakis highlighted what the City is currently doing to keep Watertown a welcoming, efficient, and healthy place to live and work. He covered updating the hiring process to fill City Hall vacancies quickly with qualified candidates, fully funding the City’s pension (Watertown being one of just a handful of communities to do so in the Commonwealth), and being on track to fully fund Other Post Employment Benefits by 2031 (Watertown potentially being the only community in the Massachusetts to do so). This provides the City with flexibility to be able to dedicate tax dollars to meeting more immediate needs. Additionally, the Manager stressed the importance of prioritizing proactive communication and responsive customer service when community members have questions or concerns. 311 calls increase month over month and the City added a part-time employee with the DPW to assist specifically with construction communications - something that greatly impacts the business community located around major construction projects.
In the last year the City established the Human Services Department, which oversees services that address housing, food and economic insecurity, migrant supports, as well as other referral pathways. The City is currently hiring to staff its second in-house Advanced Life Savings Ambulance with the Watertown Fire Department, and the Watertown Police Department is on the cusp of being fully staffed for the first time in several years. Watertown completed an ADA Self Evaluation & Transition Plan to find areas of improvement for accessibility in its spaces. And work continues to be done on the Resilient Watertown Climate and Energy Plan, one of the most aggressive climate action plans in the state. Manager Proakis discussed the importance of connecting these goals to the City Budget to ensure they stay at the forefront of decision making.
Industry Growth - Why Watertown
Despite some cooling in the Life Science industry, with companies facing financial challenges and a lag in new growth, Watertown’s Life Science sector is still quite strong. With over 100 companies in town, Watertown ranked 3rd in the state - only behind Cambridge and Waltham, in the amount of life sciences space absorbed in 2025, per the Boston Business Journal. A strong life science industry in Watertown has been instrumental in the past several years, bringing in millions of dollars in permit fees, creating jobs in Watertown, and bringing in new community members to live and enjoy all that Watertown has to offer. Manager Proakis said there are several reasons why the Life Science industry flocked to Watertown - and how those same reasons could help attract other types of industry clusters to the City.
Location and transit play an important role. Being in close proximity to Boston while still open and accessible enough to the western and central parts of the state, attracts companies with employees from other areas of Massachusetts. Watertown has a bus route system to assist in getting in and around the Boston area, which the City is working to improve in conjunction with the MBTA. Housing plays a role as well. Although the median housing price continues to increase, Watertown still has affordable housing options compared to other neighboring communities. With a mix of residential opportunities, from single family homes to larger apartment and condo complexes, there is a strong base of options for those who want to work and live in Watertown. Finally, Watertown has a vibrant culture and community. With over 90 restaurants, several cultural institutions, wide-ranging nonprofits, a strong school system, and community events, Watertown is an attractive place for families to grow.
Between these reasons, as well as the community’s strong commitment to fight climate change, the Manager noted a potential new industry cluster could be climate and clean tech companies:
“I will also note that one of the advantages of being a community that’s very well focused on climate as a priority it that we have caught the attention of some folks who do the type of business around climate and energy that I feel like we’re building our next new industry cluster here around climate tech companies and clean tech companies. I think there’s some real opportunities for us in that area as well. We’re an appealing place for somebody who wants to solve our major climate issues to set up a business because we’re a community that believes itself in trying to figure out how to address those issues.”
A representative from Tutor Intelligence, a robotics company who just increased their footprint in Watertown, inquired about the possibility of attracting more “tough tech” companies. Tough tech “applies science, engineering, and technology to the world’s biggest challenges…tough tech extends beyond the lines of software code to apply technology to processes, materials, or systems that exist in the real world.” (MIT Sloan School of Management). Manager Proakis acknowledged, “We’re building on life science, but what’s the next thing? What are the other things that we can grow to have more diversity in our industries here, and tough tech is a big part of that. The interesting challenge, I look at the Manley Way building, where they renovated an existing kind of storage type building into something that can have more people and more growth and more work in it. It is an ideal tough tech space.”
Financial Headwinds
Watertown is in a strong financial position and Manager Proakis attributes that to the fact that Watertown has long held fiscally strong, conservative financial policies and has worked to attract aggressive new growth. There are, however, some factors outside of the City’s control that can impact its financial position.
In the Life Science industry, there are concerns over a decrease in federal grants and over time, that greatly impacting the ability to create new industry in the sector - with more companies going out of business than new growth. The region as a whole depends on federal funding, particularly into science. Keeping that pipeline strong is important to Watertown’s overall economic development.
Additionally, increasing costs in other areas can have a negative impact on future growth. Tariffs continue to increase costs for construction materials, which close the margins for development companies building in Watertown. Cities continue to see rising municipal operations costs, particularly around inflation and insurance costs for employees.
Despite these concerns, Watertown continues to have a positive outlook to the future.
Future Planning & Growth
Concluding his presentation, Manager Proakis provided updates on several major projects that are ongoing within the City. Notably, the new Watertown High School is on budget - a feat in and of itself for a project designed in a pre-COVID world and bid on in a post-COVID world, which increased costs by about 10%. The Manager noted the goal was to not borrow more than $150 million for the project, keeping it within Proposition 2.5.
“This building will be done this spring and summer and in September new students will be walking into a brand new high school that is net zero, is LEED platinum 4.0, is one of the best, most energy efficient and most state of the art high school buildings you’ll ever see.”
On another building note, upgrades continue in the City purchased Parker Building, which is acting as an annex space for City Hall. A new meeting room is nearing completion and it is the new location for the Watertown Food Pantry. Several City departments will call it home in the near future, including Human Services and all of the Community Development and Planning offices. Manager Proakis added, “The idea of bringing building inspecting, zoning enforcement, and Planning and Zoning Board staff together in one single space, something which, I will note this is the third community I’ve worked in local government in Massachusetts and I’ve never been able to pull this off before. So I really, really, have been determined that I want to get to the point where you have one counter where you can come to and get a question answered on all those code and building questions at one place and all the staff you need to work with is on the other side of that door.”
2026 presents a time for continued work on Watertown Square. Last Fall, Watertown hired Bowman Consulting as the engineering firm that will take the current rendering of the new Watertown Square intersection and turn it into a full engineering design. Additionally, the Manager showed an early rendering of a potential parking garage with housing, commercial development, and a green space that could go in the space behind CVS. On this topic, Manager Proakis said, “The idea of parking garages has had a lot of ups and downs in the community. When the moment is right, I will share why I’m still a fan of this project and why I actually think this provides a lot of benefits…The major reason to do this is because centralizing parking for a business district brings visitors in and has them have a known place where they can depend on being able to leave a car. And making sure that you build a garage that is light and open and bright and friendly and welcoming is doable and there’s a way to make it work and I think that there are a lot of benefits to doing that.” The Manager also stated that there will be more opportunities for community meetings and input throughout the course of the year.
Finally, the Manager touched on exciting highlights coming out of the Economic Development Department. At a time when Massachusetts has the potential to bring in over $1 billion in tourism money, according to the Boston Business Journal, between the return of the Tall Ships, the FIFA World Cup, and MA250 events, Economic Development looks to capitalize on this increased tourism by creating a comprehensive 2026 Visitors Guide for Watertown. Available online and in person across local hotels, restaurants, and cultural institutions, the guide provides information on Watertown restaurants, community events, a map on getting around Watertown and a highlight of Watertown’s 2026 Treaty Day.
We thank Manager Proakis for taking the time to speak with us and present a thorough update on Watertown! We would also like to thank our event partners, the Hampton Inn & Suites for hosting us in their beautiful meeting space, and Wicked Bagel for providing delicious bagels for all to enjoy.
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