THURSDAY JANUARY 30, 2025
SOUTH BOSTON ONLINE
VOLUME XIX- ISSUE 74
776 Summer Street - Phase Two by Rick Winterson
T
he massive project that is now commonly called “776 Summer Street” began its design, planning, and permitting exercises back in 2015. This project was spearheaded by two national development corporations, Hilco and Redgate. They formed a subsidiary organization entitled “HRP Group Team”, which then assumed full responsibility for the 776 Summer Street Project. Various plans, documents, and a “Letter of Intent” were submitted for approval to local authorities, beginning in 2017 and during the years since then. The project is located on 15 acres – over 600,000 square feet – a large, four-sided lot on the Reserved Channel that extends along First Street to the east beyond M Street. For more than a century, this area was the home of the Edison Plant, which
was actually a multi-purpose source of electric power to many points in Greater Boston that eventua lly became obsolete. Ground was broken in 2022 for “Phase One” of 776 Summer Street Project. At this point, the completed Phase One was essentially devoted to what the HR P Group Team calls “deconstruction”. Deconstruction is the carefully engineered d isma nt ling of a site, in order to preserve the best parts of the original construction. Hilco has earned a national reputation for doing this successfully on many of its past projects. Note that Edison’s original Turbine Hall No. 1, with its strikingly arched front, has been preserved at 776 Summer Street. Eventually, this Hall will be converted into a multi-level marketplace housing a number of small vendors.
Condon Kids Learn Life Lessons Through Boat Building
By Ginger DeShaney
I
n a remarkable hands-on experience, a group of Condon Communit y Center kids built a 10-foot row boat from scratch, learning not only the art of crafting a boat but also gaining valuable life lessons along the way. These young builders – Jacob Davis, 11; Charlie Brea, 9; Naib Yohannes, 10; and Marcus Lacaussade, 11 – worked
tirelessly over the course of several weeks to build the boat they named the “Billy Allen” in honor of an amazing Condon coach who was promoted to a different community center. They even brought it to a boat show! Under the guidance of instructor Tim Smith from Community Boat Building, the kids learned how to safely handle tools, measure and cut materials, and assemble the boat piece by piece. Continued on Page 5
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