The Steamship Authority’s new Woods Hole ticket office and waiting room finally opened to the public Thursday morning, after more than a year and a half of highly visible, and sometimes controversial, construction.
Coffee and split popovers from Pie in the Sky Bakery greeted early travelers coming through the building, where general manager Alex Kryska and chief operating officer Mark Amundsen answered questions about the $37 million facility.
The terminal building has had a contentious history ever since it first was proposed in 2017.
Initially planned as a two-story structure, combining the ticket office and waiting room with staff-only areas for utilities, lockers, offices and a break room for waterfront workers, the project drew almost universal public criticism for its height and bulk.
After more than 20 redesigns failed to mollify the critics, architects from BIA Studio split the project’s functions into two separate structures, reducing the main building to a single level and converting a former freight shed on the terminal’s southern property line into a two-story staff and utility building.
The change, approved by the Steamship Authority’s governing board in 2019, added millions of dollars to the architects’ original $32 million estimate.
“We have committed to this level of capital expenditure to satisfy our neighbors,” said then-board member Moira Tierney at the time.
The 5,418-square-foot ticket building still looms high over the surrounding terminal, due to construction codes for flood-prone areas that required it to be raised more than nine feet above sea level.
Should future storms threaten even higher water, Mr. Amundsen said, the terminal is equipped with special storm gates to seal off the doors.
Despite calls from the public for a wood-shingled look, flood zone regulations also ruled out a water-permeable exterior for the building. Instead, the architects clad it in a custom granite designed to resemble the local Falmouth rock, used in the exterior of historic buildings elsewhere in Woods Hole, which is no longer quarried.
On Thursday, none of these changes seemed to bother many travelers passing through the terminal, some of whom were surprised to learn it had just opened that morning.
Bob Shaffer of Hawthorne, N.J., gave the new building a hearty endorsement, though he and his wife Kimberly said they’ll always remember the old cinder-block terminal on the water’s edge.
“That’s what we were so used to, and that’s where we first started out with our kids and stuff like that,” Mr. Shaffer said.
“But we understand, we’ve talked to a lot of people, we know that it had to be done [and] I think it looks awesome,” he said.
Ismenia Cabrera-Hill, of Yonkers, N.Y., recalled the old terminal without nostalgia as hot and low-ceilinged, with no air conditioning.
“I welcome this building. It’s airy and open and you can see out,” said Ms. Cabrera-Hill, who was headed to the Vineyard for the first time in several years with her husband Stephen Hill, a former Island homeowner.
One of the most frequently-heard criticisms during the design and construction process has been that the new building blocks views of the slips and water from its landward side.
“I don’t know how there’s a way to spin it to make people think it was a good placement,” said Edgartown resident Beth O’Connor, a member of the Steamship Authority Citizens’ Action Group.
Speaking with the Gazette by phone on Friday, Ms. O’Connor also took umbrage with the design and cost.
“I think it was overdesigned and it was way overspent,” she said.
Other Islanders were more charitable.
“It’s a hulking-looking presence,” admitted Brad Voigt, of West Tisbury and Los Angeles, on his way West with Elliott Rebhun and their cat Hillary.
But that first impression is belied by the building’s interior, Mr. Voigt said.
“It’s nice and open and full of light, and you can actually see the harbor, and you can see the boats coming in,” he said.
Mr. Rebhun said it was just what he had hoped to see.
“Everybody kept saying, you know, ‘Why are they having a wall up against the water?’ and I said, ‘There are windows there, and … you might actually have terrific views,’” he said.
“I think this is a terrific view,” Mr. Rebhun said.
One wide window on the waterside takes in all three slips and Woods Hole passage beyond, although Island-bound trucks get in the way from time to time. A matching window on the opposite wall looks back toward the bus arrival area. Both are accompanied by polished granite counters wide enough to eat or work on while looking out.
Facing the ticket windows, the northern wall is a curtain of glass, providing more views of the waterfront and of Woods Hole village.
The windowed expanses lend the wide, high-ceilinged room a spacious feeling that is enhanced by the absence of structural pillars.
Instead of vertical load-supporting pillars, Mr. Amundsen said, the roof is held up by a truss system, exposed beneath the ceiling as a set of what look like inverted white bridges.
Balancing the waiting room’s industrial touches and straight lines, wood-slatted seating undulates through the space in a series of curvilinear, backless benches.
“It’s surprisingly comfortable,” Mr. Voigt said.
Vineyard resident Ebba Hierta, who rides the ferry off-Island about once a week, took in the ticket office with her dog Nixie on Thursday. Though she wasn’t a fan of the seats, she felt it was important to have this refuge for walk-on ferry customers.
“Most of the people riding the ferry, especially this time of year, are passengers and they do need a place,” she said.
The ticket office also offers water fountains with bottle fills and plenty of electrical outlets along the granite window counters to power up devices with USB, USB-C and AC chargers, including three-prong plugs.
Mr. Amundsen said the all-electric building is designed to be net zero, a term describing steep cuts in fossil-fuel emissions.
It’s heated and cooled by a geothermal system, which uses the consistently moderate temperatures of the earth to manage indoor climates and even heat water.
Solar-ready racks on the roof will get their photovoltaic panels this fall, when the Steamship Authority resumes work on the Woods Hole terminal, Mr. Amundsen said.
The building’s main entrance is on the landward side, where buses arrive. Passengers with ferry tickets, however, can bypass entering the building and proceed directly to the slips on yellow-striped walkways.
“It’s all about traffic flow,” Mr. Amundsen said.
For those who need tickets, have questions or simply wish to use the ample restrooms inside, the building’s main entrance is accessible by both steps and ramps.
The men’s and women’s restrooms also can be entered directly from outdoors, on the building’s south side. A family restroom, entered from inside the building, is located between them.
The restrooms are not restricted to Steamship Authority passengers, but may be used by anyone passing through the village.
Mr. Amundsen said the temporary ticket building is slated for removal this fall, along with the construction trailers behind it, to make room for 200 bicycle parking spaces and a waiting area for ride share vehicles.
Landscaping, a public park, additional check-in booths for vehicles and other finishing touches also are still to come in the final phase of the more than $70 million terminal reconstruction.
Ethan Genter contributed to this article.
This article appears in July 3, 2026.
Is that a Howard Johnson’s from the 60’s?
Nope. I was inside yesterday. It’s actually lovely and modern, with great views. It’s sad Islanders always lean with the negatives.
Dorothy Johnson Henry lived summers in Edgartown in the 1980s and she was one of my first donors to the Preservation Trust! She and Susie Whittemore were best of friends and wonderful people. Yes, Dorothy was the founder’s daughter and appeared in billboards as a child saying “We love Daddy’s ice cream!@
When will we see the traffic map?
The bus staging isn’t working.
First they get stuck up above the ticket shack. Then they drop people on the wrong side of the stone building without the windows.
Surely the SSA has a better idea?
This article reinforces why I felt it was important not to rush to judgment.
The $37 million price tag is still difficult to swallow, and I understand why many people remain unhappy about the location and the loss of some exterior views. Those concerns are legitimate and won’t disappear.
But now we’re also hearing from people who have actually walked through the building. Some still dislike it, while others describe a bright, spacious terminal with comfortable amenities, harbor views from inside, better passenger flow, climate control, plentiful charging stations, and restrooms available to everyone. That’s a much more useful conversation than simply condemning the project before anyone had experienced it.
The real test won’t be whether everyone loves the architecture. It will be whether the completed terminal serves the traveling public better for the next 40 or 50 years. If it improves safety, traffic flow, accessibility, and the overall passenger experience, then those benefits deserve to be weighed alongside the cost and the aesthetic criticisms.
I’ve said from the beginning that I’d rather judge the finished product than my expectations of it. This article is the first real opportunity to start doing exactly that.
But this same beautiful building, full of light and amenities, couldn’t have been built farther back or over to the side? Have you asked the dock workers their opinion? No mention of them in the article but when I have spoken to them they were not very happy. Maybe they too will come around to appreciating the view from inside the building. Oh wait. I look forward to falling in love with this new building.
Sarah, I think that’s a fair point. The people who work on the docks every day certainly deserve to have their opinions heard because they’ll experience this terminal far more than most passengers. At the same time, I also think it’s appropriate to hear from the people who actually use the building as travelers. If, after a season or two, both passengers and employees identify problems with the location, traffic flow, or daily operations, those concerns should be taken seriously. I’m simply suggesting that now that the building is open, we finally have the opportunity to judge it based on experience rather than expectations.
Replying to Mr Harvey’s reply to me, don’t know if it will end up in the right spot. The truth is, the dock workers were never consulted, from day one. None of the designers had the wisdom to ask the workers on the dock what they thought of the plan, the men and women on the docks who have every day hands-on experience with the traffic and the people. Not one of them was consulted. I know this because I spoke to a few of them. It seems to me that their input would have been useful.
Responding to Sara’s latest comment in this thread:
Sara, I think we’re very much on the same page. I agree that the people who work on the docks every day have a perspective that no architect or planner can duplicate, and they should have been part of the conversation from the beginning.
My only point has been that once the building was completed, I wanted to evaluate it based on how it actually functions rather than on predictions alone. That evaluation should include passengers, the dock workers, bus drivers, ticket takers, and everyone else who uses the facility. If the people who work there every day conclude that the design makes their jobs harder, that should carry significant weight.
Your comment also reminded me that I know quite a few of the ticket takers and dock workers from my many trips back and forth. I always enjoy talking with them, and you’ve made me realize I never thought to ask their perspective on this project. The next time I travel, I’ll be interested to hear their thoughts now that the building is open.
Murray, essentially you are correct. Change is hard and sometimes things that we have a strong reaction to end up working out just fine. When I spoke to the workers their complaint was nobody could see anything that was going on on the other side of the building and they had to install widescreen TVs in order to monitor any given situation. That was a few months ago, I wonder how they feel now. I haven’t been off for a while, trapped like a rat on the island this time of year. By the time I get off again, who knows, all the kinks could have been worked out.
Please note the total cost of the project is estimated at $70M, the $37M is just one piece of the overall price tag. It’s impossible that this doesn’t translate to higher prices for both the ferry as well as parking for an island that is already unaffordable. I don’t see how pointing out how these high cost projects, the new high school being another example, no matter how appealing, don’t result in outcomes with material consequences for working people, is seen as a negative. It seems we’re stuck in a mindset that is fiscally unsustainable for the vast majority of our population. If that’s perceived as negative then I suggest we need to rethink about who’s actually being forced to pay for these monuments.
Sometimes controversial ? How about greatly controversial. Or hotly debated.
I fail to understand the emotional outburts this building has caused. Undoubtedly, among other things, the hefty price tag is due to concessions mandated by the community and I’ll go out on a limb to say there were probably engineering circumstances that came into play as well. The old building had seen its time and the temporary one was tacky. I applaud SSA for their dedication and feel like the naysayers should appreciate the “First World Problems” their squawking about.
Will never set foot in there unless completely necessary
$37 MILLION DOLLARS.
What an eye sore this building is, not in keeping with the Cape at all!
Looks like a train or the beginnings of a pyramid. Perhaps it was necessary (or not) but you’d think with the amount of money spent they could have come up with a more appealing design.
The whole Cape doesn’t look like “The Cape” anymore! So very sad!!
So true. The Cape now looks like anywhere Suburbia USA. Nothing distinguishing about it anymore except perhaps the shore line and beaches.
SJS – “except perhaps the shore line and beaches” you say. My, that’s a huge exception. I guess without a shoreline and beaches we’d just be Wichita? Nah, we still wouldn’t be Wichita.
Wait, this cost more the build than our hospital?!
Beam me up Scotty.
37 mil for yet another temporary building, like the one before this one, and the one before that, so on… this monstrosity will too be gone, just wait 🙂
The building is the least of the problems. The traffic staging is absolutely horrendous. It is dangerous, it is chaotic, and an utter and complete failure of handling traffic. I have watched people with physical handicaps being in danger of being run over, having to negotiate huge busses, vehicles, trucks, trying to get to the vehicle area behind the ticket office, or the former ticket office, now that the new building is open.
It cost how much??????
I love the Gazette! But I gotta say, portions of this sound like a realtor wrote it. A rather positive spin! Again, I love the gazette.
Is that a WWII bunker? What an utter waste of money. Bad location and completely unnecessary building.
We used the family bathroom this weekend to change my toddler’s diaper. Clean and not a dump like the old bathrooms were. Islanders seem angry (well, over everything, it seems) but as an annual June visitor it’s nice to have this facility and its amenities.
I was happy with the old building.
me too
the old building was right by the boats and it fit into to landscape
a mistake to let it go
And when the old building gets swamped by rising tides you’d wear your snorkel and flippers? The construction was done with rising tides in mind.
Honestly more appropriate design for a Kansas City Airport Terminal 5 ..
I’ll keep my opinions of the entire job to myself. However, as of last week, there were 4 or 5 places for people to park who are picking someone up or dropping them off. The article states, the space where the temporary ticket office will be cleared for bicycles. Where will someone be able to park to wait for the boat to arrive for a pickup or drop off? Bear in mind, that boats can be late or you can’t always arrive just when the boat is coming in. Any answers?
June 28, 2026 – 1:43pm
Hearing tourists talk about the views from inside the new building is like having part of our family stolen from Woods Hole that we’ll never see again. Many old Vineyarders know how this feels.
Is there a private bathroom for the physically handicapped?
As someone who works in construction and is very familiar with green initiatives, I can easily understand why this costs so much! Geothermal is a wonderful way to build net-zero and have no emissions, and while the environment is important to us all, those systems are much more costly due to how far foundations have to be drilled, etc. You really can’t have it both ways. Of course, we all prefer traditional wood shingles, too, but our own codes, which we have voted into place, have made them unavailable. This building will stand the test of time and pay for itself in the long-run.
I am delighted that the interior is so pleasing to many, but the exterior is just Butt Ugly. The design is completely out of synch with our New England styles.
All this money spent just to let people buy tickets and go to the bathroom??