JUST THE TICKET?
State agrees to lease One Depot Square to company proposing passenger rail line
WOONSOCKET – It looks like a Massachusetts businessman’s plan to bring commuter rail to the city have switched to the fast track as state transportation officials announced they’ve leased One Depot Square to the fledgling Boston Surface Rail Company.
Daniel Clarke, principal property management officer at the state Department of Transportation, said BSRC intends to use the historic downtown facility as a commuter rail hub.
The State Properties Committee approved a five-year lease with Vincent Bono, chairman and chief executive officer of BSRC, effective Jan. 1, for $1,000 a month, according to Clarke.
“This is where passengers would board, this is where they would disembark, this is where they would park their cars,” said Clarke. “We’re putting the building back to what its intended use is and we hope it works.”
Bono announced a $3 million plan for a Worcester-to-Providence commuter rail in 2014, with one intermediary stop in the city. Currently based in Arlington, Mass., BSRC would launch the venture entirely with private capital – he’s not seeking any state or federal subsidies – and make use of existing infrastructure, including Providence & Worcester railroad tracks.
The news comes as the City Council on Monday approved the sale of a tiny parcel of land on Cato Street to Bono. The sale price for the lot, which consists of less than 4,000 square feet – was $12,075, according to papers on file with the city clerk’s office.
“It isn’t worth that much,” says City Council President Albert G. Brien, a real estate appraiser by trade.
Brien says he is still trying to get a detailed explanation from the administration regarding how Bono intends to use the parcel, which is located just a few hundred yards from One Depot Square.
Planning Director N. David Bouley says Bono might be attempting to cobble together a number of parcels around the depot for a use related to the rail operations.
“My understanding is one of the reasons he might be using it is for parking,” said Bouley. “He’s also looking at buying some other properties in the area.”
When Bono announced the commuter rail plan in 2014 he was eyeing the site of the now-defunct Alice Mill on Fairmount Street as the location for a possible passenger depot. A P&W rail spur runs alongside the mill – or what’s left of it, since it burned down in 2011.
Clarke said DOT reached out to Bono after hearing about the Alice Mill concept. The state transportation agency has long owned the historic train depot, and thought it wouldn’t be very hard to persuade Bono to take advantage of a site that was built as a rail hub.
Clarke said Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt was instrumental in bringing the deal to fruition.
“Here we are today, about one year from the beginning of talks with Mr. Bono and we have made great progress,” said Baldelli-Hunt. “I’ve exerted a lot of energy into hopes of one day returning passenger rail to the city.”
Bono could not be reached on Tuesday, but he made it clear on the BSRC website several months ago that Alice Mill was off the table and that the company was focusing on One Depot Square. The website says the company was working with DOT and the city to finalize plans for the use of the depot, but there were no details.
The website says BSRC is aiming to establish commuter rail from Providence to Worcester by the second quarter of 2017. The company envisions launching with two trains daily from Providence to Worcester, eventually running up to four round trips per day with one intermediate stop in downtown Woonsocket.
The Worcester-to-Providence train run is expected to take 65-70 minutes. That’s somewhat longer than it takes to make the trip by motor vehicle along Route 146 – on a good day – but BSRC’s market research suggests that some 16 percent of the “driving commuter base” would switch to rail if they had the chance.
Clarke said Bono also told DOT that the rail company intends to use the facility as its corporate headquarters.
One Depot Square is still being used to house two other tenants – the National Park Service and the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Inc. The NPS uses the site as office space for several park rangers. The other organization is a non-profit entity that coordinates the activities of the heritage corridor with a handful of employees.
As their landlord, DOT required the two agencies to pay no rent – only utilities, according to Clarke. Both will remain in the building for the foreseeable future, but Clarke said BSRC is leasing the entire facility from DOT and is now landlord to the park service and the corridor group.
“For the foreseeable future, we don’t see any changes,” said Meghan Kish, director of the Blackstone River National Park. “Obviously with a new lease we might have to work through some issues.”
Significantly, said Clarke, the lease requires BSRC to maintain the building.
“It’s a good deal for all of us,” said Clarke. “We were putting a lot of money into it. It’s a historic train station. It was a money-losing situation for DOT and now we’ll be free of that, we won’t have to make those expenses and the building will be used again for its intended purpose.”
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Queen Anne-style structure was built as a P&W railroad depot in 1882 to replace an earlier depot that burned down. P&W runs freight trains past the depot every day.
A couple of times a year, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council brings in special-occasion passenger trains that depart from the depot. They include fall foliage tours and the BVTC’s biggest moneymaker of the year – the yuletide Polar Express. But passenger trains haven’t run through the city on a regular basis for many years.
The existing depot has more than 13,300 square feet of space, most of it on the ground floor. But there are nearly 2,200 square feet of space in partially finished basement and more than 3,000 on the second story, according to city records.
The company envisions launching with two trains daily from Providence to Worcester