Architects for the Steamship Authority’s sweeping redesign of its Woods Hole terminal will soon be returning from the drawing board with new concept designs for the ticket building.

Public comment meetings are tentatively scheduled for mid-March, according to a schedule presented Monday to the boat line board of governors.

The comment sessions will be held on Zoom to encourage dialogue, answer questions and discuss the criteria and objectives of the building design, architect Chris Iwerks of BIA Studio told the board during its regular monthly videoconference.

After listening to the public’s responses, Mr. Iwerks said, the firm will refine its concept design and bring it back for another presentation and comment session in early June.

Coronavirus concerns have added some new wrinkles to the design process, affecting such considerations as ventilation systems, surface materials and ticket window construction, according to BIA Studio’s Lian Davis.

“The building will not be designed around socially distanced occupancies per se,” Mr. Davis said. However, he added, ticket sellers and the public will be separated by glass partitions and when necessary, ticket lines may be reduced as well.

“The Steamship Authority wanted to close every other window . . . when the need arises,” he said.

The building concept shown to the public in March will include optional solar panels and other design elements aimed at achieving net zero energy use and potentially qualifying for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), an international green building certification program.

Mr. Davis said the estimated construction costs won’t be available until after the schematic design process, which is currently scheduled to end in mid-June and precedes the design development phase of the project.

“We’ll have the ability during design development to go down the net zero path or not,” he said.

Mr. Iwerks noted that construction costs may be significantly offset by energy savings over the life of the new building, which he estimated at more than 50 years.

“One of the reasons LEED has been so successful is that the life cycle costs go down when you make sustainable buildings,” he said.

The architects’ timeline calls for further public presentations in mid-October and early December, with the design development phase scheduled to end Dec. 31.

Also at Monday’s meeting, boat line governors agreed to pay BIA Studio up to $885,321 for its work overseeing the terminal reconstruction project in 2021.

SSA general manager Robert Davis (no relation to Lian Davis) told governors that the contract covers administration for all construction services on the site. It also includes testing and inspections, based on the architect’s estimate of costs for subcontractor services, testing labs, and field inspectors, he said.

“That’s not to say that we can’t come in below that number,” the general manager said. “For the 2020 construction administration, they’re actually coming in a little lower [than contracted].”

Boat line governors also created a new position Monday, approving a management request to hire a senior network engineer and security analyst for the SSA’s computer systems.

Security threats and attempts to access the systems are a daily occurrence, Mr. Davis told governors.

In addition to analyzing network security, the new position would also be responsible for providing information security training to SSA staff and developing companywide security policies and procedures, among other tasks, according to a staff summary prepared by the boat line’s information technology manager, Curt Van Riper.

The company’s systems performed well on last week’s opening day for reservations, Mr. Davis said.

On Jan. 19, the first day of online reservations for the Vineyard route, the ferry line processed 14,997 transactions representing over $3.8 million in revenue, he said.

The first day of online reservations in 2020 saw 14,853 transactions totaling about $3.3 million, Mr. Davis said.

That was also the day that the SSA’s reservation system crashed almost as soon as it opened, remaining out until well after noon and running slowly thereafter.

No such blackout occurred this year, Mr. Davis said, expressing thanks to the information technology staff for reinforcing the system in advance of this year’s opening day.

Telephone reservations begin Tuesday, Mr. Davis said.

Among other business Monday, governors approved the purchase of three new electric buses for no more than $2.9 million total, with $875,000 reimburseable through grants, and agreed to waive concessionaire Centerplate’s contractual minimum payment of more than $700,000, given that on-board concessions were halted at the start of the pandemic early last year.

An earlier agreement with the Seastreak fast ferry for year-round service has been scaled back to spring, summer and early fall, Mr. Davis told the board of governors, due to a reduction in passenger demand.

Port council chairman Edward Anthes-Washburn announced that he is leaving his job as CEO and port director of the New Bedford Port Authority for a management position at Crowley Maritime, a shipping corporation based in Florida. He will remain in New Bedford, Mr. Anthes-Washburn said, and has been asked by the city’s mayor, Jon Mitchell, to remain on the port council for the time being.