About 14 miles to the Island’s south, Vineyard Wind is in the midst of building its 16th offshore wind turbine, each structure about three times taller than the Statue of Liberty. The company has 46 more to go after that, making the historic offshore wind energy project still a work in progress.
But closer to home, on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven, Vineyard Wind is on the verge of celebrating another milestone: the company is putting the final touches on its two-story, 14,000-square foot operations and maintenance headquarters. It expects workers to move in by next month.
During a hardhat tour of the new building this week, officials with Vineyard Wind and its parent company Avangrid said they hope to be done with the facility and have employees working there by the beginning of June, marking the start of the offshore wind industry’s day-to-day presence on the Island.
Of the several wind projects that have been approved in an area of ocean just south of the Island, only Vineyard Wind has decided to base its operations here. Construction started on the shoreside facility last year.
“The building, for all intents and purposes, is done,” said Jack Arruda, the director of site operations for Avangrid. “We still need our final sign-off by the building inspector, we’ve had some preliminary walkthroughs with them last week, but we think we’re in pretty good shape.”
A gray-shingled office and warehouse between Wolf’s Den Pizzeria and Tisbury Marketplace, the building will be the brain of the wind farm’s operations for at least the next 25 years, with several dozen maintenance and operations employees working there to keep the company’s 62 turbines running.
From the street, the most noticeable thing about the building is its first floor. Because Vineyard Haven is so deep in the flood zone, federal regulations required the new construction to be elevated. The headquarters sits on steel piles about 15 feet above street level.
It’s an indication of how the rest of the downtown may have to change in the future, said Ben Robinson, a member of the Tisbury planning board and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
“We’ll see other buildings developed in that area use that same formula,” Mr. Robinson said. “But it does put into question what kind of buildings are viable in that area.”
It’s an expensive proposition, though. According to contractor Dellbrook-JKS, the building is valued at more than $16 million.
A parking lot will be situated where the ground floor would have been, which is somewhat of a blessing, said Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller.
“That was one of the bottlenecks when we were planning this,” he said. “We didn’t have a place where there was enough parking, so lifting the building up allows for more parking.”
On the first floor, there is a cavernous warehouse, canteen, changing rooms, an IT area and a meeting room. The warehouse is the largest singular space in the facility and Vineyard Wind will use it to store spare electrical parts, motors and other equipment for the 837-foot tall turbines.
On the second floor there are several more offices and the control center, where employees will monitor the turbines.
“They will be operating from here and have access to everything,” said Nuria Soto, the vice president of operations and maintenance at Avangrid.
Engineers, warehouse coordinators, safety officials and technicians will all work out of the Vineyard Haven building, Ms. Soto said.
General Electric, which manufactured the turbines, will also have office space in the operations building so the company can keep an eye on how the infrastructure rolls out for the first time in the U.S.
On Tuesday, when the Gazette walked through the facility, much of the building was finished, though it largely hadn’t been outfitted for a full complement of workers. Fences still enclosed the building and landscaping had not yet started in the dirt perimeter area outside. Rooms lie largely empty and unfurnished.
Once the operations facility in Vineyard Haven is up and running, the company will begin to use its new terminal, located just down the street on Vineyard Haven harbor. From there, technicians will head out to the turbines by boat. On Tuesday, a septic installation was taking place at the terminal, and other utilities were being put into place.
When completed, the harborside terminal will be able to handle three vessels that will transport technicians to the wind farm.
The last piece of Vineyard Wind’s footprint on the Island is a helicopter hangar at Martha’s Vineyard Airport. It was the first building to be completed and it is ready to house helicopters that will take quick trips out to the substation at the wind farm.
While the final touches on the Island facilities are being done, Vineyard Wind employees are largely working out of New Bedford. About 30 people have been hired for the operations facility and Vineyard Wind has said it is looking to hire about 90 people in total to work out of the Vineyard location.
The company has secured some employee housing on the Island, much of it within walking distance of the Beach Road building, including some apartments owned by the Packer family, Mr. Arruda said.
Mr. Moeller said the company is in an in-between phase now. Ten turbines are already delivering power while construction at the ocean location is ongoing. Weather delays have been common — an area prized for its strong winds makes for a hard place to build, Mr. Moeller said.
“You’ve got to really plan on weather conditions and maintenance schedules, on going to each one of those assets,” Mr. Arruda said. “We only put in so many trips per year.”
Vineyard Wind hopes to ramp up the installation of the turbines this summer when the weather is calmer and it is easier to get crews to the turbines. As of this week, 47 turbine foundations have been installed. When complete, the wind farm will be the largest in the country.
“Once we’re done, we’ll be happy,” Mr. Arruda said.
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