Boston Solar Powered Transit Project Begins

BOSTON — Developer John Rosenthal and Massachusetts officials broke ground on the nation’s first solar powered commuter rail station. The station will be part of Fenway Center, a solar powered mixed-use neighborhood that will include apartments buildings, office towers, retail space, a parking garage and the transit station. It will be located in what are now unused parking lots behind Fenway Park.

 

The $450 million development will be situated between Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street, and run beside and across the Massachusetts Turnpike, which will necessitate construction of a deck between two of its buildings. Solar panels will generate the majority of the development’s electricity. The new transit station, which is replacing Yawkey Station, will receive its electricity from solar panels located throughout the development.

 

The state has promised to pay $13.5 million for the station, of which the majority of construction will take place next spring, and plans to spend another $6.5 million to construct a street off Brookline Avenue servicing the station and a road that will connect Maitland and Overland streets through the development.

 

Rosenthal won approval for the project in 2009 but has not yet secured financing for its commercial and residential sections, according to reports. Construction on those sections will begin by 2012 and last three years, depending on the financing Rosenthal secures.