Checking in on Construction at The Boston Public Market

Our construction crew, Lee Kennedy Co., has been busy at work, transforming the inside of our market building on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway directly above the Haymarket MBTA station.

To tell you more about our construction progress, we’re turning it over to our Superintendent, Heath Dinsmore and Project Manager, Marisa Somers to explain:

Almost five months into construction, we’ve finished a lot of the basic infrastructure of the market, and the interior is starting to look more like how it will look once it’s open.

The focus of the first couple months was building the floor of the market. We started by installing a full drainage system on the existing structural slab. Over this, we placed a layer of structural foam and then a topping concrete slab, which forms the floor of the market that customers will walk on.

The main market hall. Here you can see the infrastructure of all the pylons that will provide water, electricity and drainage to each vendor stall.

Over the last month, we’ve been working on the mechanical systems that will heat and cool the market and feed electricity and plumbing to the individual stalls where market vendors will sell their goods. This means work on the overhead mechanicals that run along the ceiling of the market, including HVAC ducts and fire protection.

HVAC ducts waiting for installation.

Individual vendor stalls will receive water, electricity and drainage through pylons, which we’ve been installing over the last month. It’s intricate work that’s made more complicated because we’re working in a building where we need to coordinate with the systems that are currently feeding the upper floors of the building.

One of the built-out pylons with laminate cladding.

Through the end of the month, we’ll be working on overhead mechanicals and pylons, and our next steps include installing the laminate cladding that surrounds the pylons, and framing the exterior walls of the market. After that, we’ll start building the structure of the vendor stalls out from the pylons, and you’ll really be able to see the market take shape.

We can’t wait until it’s finished and vendors start moving in.