The Steamship Authority held a public engagement session for its Woods Hole terminal project Thursday, and after a detailed presentation on landscaping, LEED certification (environmental standards), and how the construction would be phased, the engaged public expressed frustration.
The size and scope of the terminal building designed by BIA.studio and the traffic generated by the ferry service to Martha’s Vineyard once again dominated the public portion of the Zoom forum.
SSA board chair Kathryn Wilson, who represents Falmouth on the five-member board, called on her fellow board members and the SSA administration to shrink the project. “I think that concerns that the community has recited, we’ve heard before. I agree with most of them,” Wilson said. “I do think that the building should be more in keeping with the other terminal buildings at the other ports, and I’m concerned about the amount of money we’re spending on this project when we really do need to be focusing on our mission in terms of transportation and boats.”
She pointed out that she holds only 10 percent of the vote on the SSA board, which is heavily weighted to the Island representatives. “I rely on common sense, trying to maintain a dialogue, bring these issues up. It’s an upward battle, I gotta say. The footprint of the SSA is larger than just the property lines, and the impact goes well beyond Railroad Ave. and Cowdry Road.”
Even Vineyard resident Paddy Moore, who was on the Zoom call representing Healthy Aging M.V., criticized the size of the terminal building and its focus. She also raised concerns about the distance seniors would have to walk to get from the building to the boats, noting that the Island’s year-round population is aging, with one-third over 65 years old.
“I was startled to find myself in agreement with Falmoth residents primarily around the size issue,” Moore said during the Zoom call. “The design and planning is for the benefit of tourists, and not for the benefits of either community.”
Rich Williams, the landscape designer for the project, presented the plans for an exterior waiting area outside the terminal building with trees and seating areas. He indicated that the designs double the amount of pedestrian space on the site.
Williams said that granite from a seawall will be repurposed for seating. He added that ideas from a recent walk through Woods Hole would be incorporated into the final design, such as trying to get horse troughs moved to the site as water fountains.
Colleen Soden, a consultant on the project, detailed the steps being taken to be environmentally conscious in the overall landside design, including solar panels over a canopy in the bike parking area. The outcome, she said, will be gold-level LEED certification for the project.
Jonathan Goldman, a Woods Hole resident, wasn’t overly impressed, saying it took the public to bring up solar for the SSA and its architects to even consider it. He called it a “smokescreen.” Beyond that, it does nothing to alleviate the carbon footprint of the SSA’s fleet of ferries, Goldman said. “It’s all fine and well that you’re planning for the site, which means BIA in essence is doing the bidding of the SSA to comply with some environmental responsibility,” he said. “But the reality is the boats are spewing so much …”
Meanwhile, Nan and Walter Schanbacher, who live within a golf shot of the terminal property, renewed their frequent complaints about the effect of the ferry service on their neighborhood.
Walter Schanbacher complained about cars and trucks spilling onto his road to wait for an opportunity to queue up for the ferries. His wife pointed out that during the summer, it can take 45 minutes to get through the traffic just to get home.
“I live here and pay taxes here, and the stupid tourist cars are preventing me from getting to my own home all summer,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. You guys are going to do what you’re going to do anyway. I hope someday you all have to answer for it, but what you are doing to this village is simply a disgrace. It’s just not tolerable.”
Suzanne Kuffler, who has organized a petition drive to get the terminal size reduced, urged the SSA to make the change while it still can. “The community recommendations have been long-standing. Consideration of changes should be on the table,” she said.
Meanwhile, Damien Kuffler criticized the presentation, saying it focused too much on landscape and LEED certification, with not even a brief look at the plans for the building itself.
“What is the concept of the Steamship Authority asking for public input if it has no impact?” he said. “Entirely missing … was the building itself. Why is it so large? Why does it require five ticketing windows, such a large atrium, and such a large footprint? None of this has been justified.”
No decisions were made. The SSA has said BIA.studio will make a 90 percent design phase presentation sometime in December.
Great job SSA on your successful redesign of the Railroad Avenue portion of your Woods Hole campus! The rest of the part where you spend millions more dollars to rebuild the same building you already have in a worse location, albeit with Gold LEED certification – that’s the problem. With that said, if you just want to upgrade the efficiency of the existing building we currently enjoy, you could always contact Rise Engineering thru Cape Light Compact and Eversource will be happy to cover 80% of the cost for said energy efficiency improvements like they would for any other commercial customer? Millions saved…
The SSA project continues to be a nightmare despite millions of dollars of design fees spent redesigning the building over and over again. Yet here we are and the design STILL is not in keeping with the architecture indigenous with coastal New England. Rather we have an out of scale modern piece of crap that is about to be built. Hard to believe this is where we are. But hey they say it’s going to be LEED Gold. Oh boy. Few realize that this costs a small fortune to enable it to be certified. Smart designers and owners deploy energy conscious methods skipping the certification nonsense in order to save significant certification costs. That hasn’t been the case here. It seems to me that selfish designers and SSA project managers have let this process get away from them over and over again. Nobody ever seems to be happy with this project (and for good reason).
I have watched with interest this project evolve and I am always left thinking that the people hired to design it are designing for themselves and not their client. To make matters worse the officials at the SSA are clueless based upon the many poor decisions made thus far leading up to this point. What a shame. Now due to these missteps costs have risen so high they are forced to increase ferry & parking fares (which were already high). These high costs will deter people from coming which is a shame. Perhaps that is what the goal was all along. I thought that only happened on Nantucket.
If you go to Ocracoke in No Carolina they have a very similar ferry to the island. Everything is FREE, including taking your car over. It’s time that the Comm of MA take over this operation from the SSA and incorporate it into the State budget and free us from this madness that never seems to end.
I virtually attended the Zoom presentation and came away with the impression that it was just so much purposely designed time wasting astroturfing. Feedback on questions about trees and repurposing granite got responses from the presenters, but there were NONE on the ludicrous size, height and expense of the planned building. The current small footprint of the temporary building works, and will work better in the future as more people get used to buying tickets online and on their smartphones. If the SSA keeps treating Falmouth residents like mushrooms (“keep them in the dark and feed them….”), Falmouth is likely to reclaim the rear parking lot at Woods Hole…a disaster, but who could blame them?
Common Sense Please : Anyone can see that the terminal size for Woods Hole is too big.
That is what they said the last time the terminal had an expansion.
They were wrong.
There is no shortage of space in Woods Hole.
The Naushon Landing and Dyer’s Dock get so little use.
WHOI has far more waterfront than they need.
Their ships should be at sea.
The SSA is trying to put lipstick on a pig.
The pig is Woods Hole.
The SSA should have just one mainland port.