The Steamship Authority’s controversial new terminal building in Woods Hole is slated to open in June, more than eight years after the authority demolished its waterfront terminal building to build a third ferry slip.
“We’re looking at a June 16 completion date and occupancy permit,” chief operating officer Mark Amundsen said Tuesday, in a report to the Steamship Authority board.
To meet that target date, work has been going on seven days a week, Mr. Amundsen said.
“We’ve been authorizing weekend overtime, because we need to get into the building as soon as we can so we can get our training done,” he said.
Staff training in the new building is scheduled to begin May 23, Mr. Amundsen said.
“The faster we get in there, the faster we can get trained and start getting signage [and] everything for getting our traveling public used to this, because it is going to be quite a change,” he said.
Lian Davis of BIA Studio, the architectural firm that designed the entire reconfiguration of the Woods Hole terminal, said the project has lagged 32 days behind its original May 15 completion date, largely due to three separate situations.
In two cases, he said, contractors found unexpected obstacles when they dug beneath the surface for the building’s foundation and geothermal well field: boulders, forgotten concrete structures and even an old rail engine turntable, from the days when trains ran to Woods Hole.
Thirdly, Mr. Davis said, the geothermal well field had to be completed before the terminal building could be started, so that the geothermal contractor could stage vehicles and equipment on the site.
This winter’s weather also played a role in delaying work, he said.
Mr. Amundsen said the weekend overtime, which has been authorized since the beginning of the year, has been helping to accelerate the project.
“Hopefully we’ll pick up a number of days still to go as we go forward,” he said.
Previously estimated at $32 million and then $39 million, the terminal building and its nearby utility building are now nearing $37 million in construction and related costs.
The utility building was created after a public outcry over the size of the main terminal building, which originally was designed with two floors.
After several redesigns and a host of public-input sessions, the final single-story design was approved by the Steamship Authority board in 2019. Construction began in the fall of 2024.
The current, modular ticket office, which cost about $2.6 million to install, opened in late 2017 with a temporary permit from the state, issued on the condition that it would be replaced by a permanent structure.
The new building, which is elevated well above sea level due to flood zone building codes, will have sweeping views from its waterside windows, Mr. Amundsen said.
“When you walk in the building, you can just look out and see all the slips,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be really well received by the traveling public,” he said.
Some Vineyard motorists have grumbled that the building now blocks the view from the vehicle staging area, so drivers can’t see the slips, while Woods Hole and Falmouth residents have decried it for interrupting their view from the Crane street bridge.
The new ticket building will open with temporary landscaping for the summer, with further landscaping, path making and other site work to follow next fall, according to the current schedule from BIA Studios.
Among other business Tuesday, the Steamship Authority board discussed the recommendation from general manager Alex Kryska that the M/V Governor be sold to save money and free up dock space.
The advisory port council, which tabled the topic earlier this month, will tackle it again at the request of board chair Peter Jeffrey, who asked for the council to make its recommendation in May.
The 72-year-old freight ferry is a favorite among Islanders, even though it can only dock in Vineyard Haven and Woods Hole.
If the Steamship Authority board votes next month to put the vintage vessel up for sale, any change of hands would not take place until after the summer, Mr. Kryska said.
The authority’s newest freighter, M/V Monomoy, went into service on the Nantucket route last week, he said, making one trip before a fuel injector needed to be replaced.
“Typically, when you get a new boat into service, you’re going to have some shakeouts,” he said.
“She’s been running since then, pretty reliably,” Mr. Kryska said.
Now that the Monomoy has joined her two identical sister ships, M/V Barnstable and M/V Aquinnah, the Steamship Authority is preparing a thorough review of their acquisition and conversion from offshore service vessels (OSVs) to freight and passenger ferries, he said.
Editor's note: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated who issued the permit for the temporary terminal. It was given to the SSA by the state.
This article appears in April 24, 2026.
A completely unnecessary structure and total waste of money!! But I would expect nothing less from the old steamship authority leadership. Good grief
This is a lovely building, said no one ever and never will. It’s too late now but why was this monstrosity ever built? Oh yeah, because the SSA is living in the 1990’s. With online booking and ticket sales on a phone app why do we need anything other than a small shelter about the size of the temporary building already there? I know it’s too late but we’ll all be paying for this goof up for decades.
Looks like windowless brick prison and the bus drivers hate its location.
So do the dock workers and the truck drivers and just about anybody who has laid eyes on it. It’s a travesty.
If only the SSA had engaged an architectural firm rooted on the Cape or islands. The design would have stood a far better chance of being regionally correct.
Selling the Governor is a mistake! You don’t sell something that’s reliable when you’re surrounded by other things that aren’t.
It should be a race to dismantle the structure
What a waste of money. That 37m could have paid for a reliable boat that could backup the others as necessary
For the visible deferred maintenance, weeds sprouting between the curb stop, tumbling garbage and litter in the coastal asphalt breeze and an excellent demeanor of character and class like how SSA manages the “terminal” building in Vineyard Haven haha! After the $37M has been fully dispersed to those lucky benefactors…. What on earth are we to expect from the SSA? I think very much of the same.
Wrong place, wrong height, wrong size and way over budget….good going SSA, you’ve proven yet again you know what you are doing.
3000sq ft brick jailhouse to sell tickets
Big mess. Cant wait to try out the new toilets after i eat at the 99 though!
I thought that the temporary structure was the permanent one. Not attractive architecture, but it did the job. Why spend more? Silly me.
What is happening to our vineyard? Let’s start with the steamship, a nightmare, then move on to the windmills, a disaster, finally, the push to make MV the next Boston suburb…So glad I have my memories….Can we tear down that totally ugly, miss placed building, no….Can we take down the terrible windmills that are in our ocean, no, can we stop the total building of ugly structures on the vineyard in the name of affordable housing, maybe….Your vote and your concerns matter…Let’s try to save what we have left…Give a vote to the people who live and own property on the vineyard….We need numbers to save our island…Stop the madness…Look around it isn’t pretty If not then they will continue, why not…The ugly new Stop and Shop, so visible from the street, lets add a few fast food places and chain stores. Why not we already have lulu. The Dairy Queen was bought not to preserve but to develop….That was obvious from the beginning…Good Bye MV…glad I knew you when…..Katama, looks like a want to be Suburb….no personality…..New money the Yankees and their sense of style is gone…Oh, well, life goes on…..Sure do miss the old vineyard guards.
Marie, I agree. Ugly buildings, overloaded ponds, traffic jams, and, the glitterati will eventually move on to the next spot. It was ever thus. IMHO
Hopefully the SSA will at some point realize their practice of designing and buying a new type of ferry every time makes no sense: No common parts, no common lessons learned, no common training, no common crew certification.
The three new freight boats are identical
Hmmm.“We’re looking at a June 16 completion date and occupancy permit,” chief operating officer Mark Amundsen said Tuesday, in a report to the Steamship Authority board. And then, Staff training in the new building is scheduled to begin May 23, Mr. Amundsen said.
I really don’t see the need for the new building, the “temporary” one has worked well for years. However, it does appear that the SSA is in need of new calendars.
That building would have been up in 6-8 months in China. Been state of the art, eco-friendly architecturally appropriate and a third the cost.