A collapse at the under-demolition old L Street power plant in South Boston has authorities on scene trying to rescue multiple people from the rubble.
Boston Police said the call came in at 1:43 p.m. at 776 Summer St. for a building collapse requiring a technical rescue. Police said the call came in for multiple people trapped.
Boston EMS said it had taken two people to local hospitals and was treating a third on scene.
The plant is recognizable as the hulking pink building that looms over Southie’s City Point neighborhood, a plant that’s been an empty shell for decades.
Developers are in the midst of preparing to replace the old Edison coal plant with a large residential and commercial development, a process that will include demolishing the bulk of the giant puce box that’s visible for miles around.
The scanner continued to buzz an hour later with urgent missives between fire personnel.
The cops said police, fire and EMS are all on scene.
The redevelopment of the old plant has moved slowly, with community and political opposition to various aspects dogging Redgate and Hilco Redevelopment Partners, who plan to turn it into a 1.8-million-square-foot development that would include 635 apartments and condos, 960,000 square feet of office and research uses, 80,000 square feet of retail space, 240 hotel rooms and up to 1,214 parking spaces.
The developers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last September, as the Herald reported, concerns grew around the demo itself — or, as the developers took to referring to it as, the “deconstruction.” A Hilco high-up said the mantra would be “safety, safety, safety” as locals worried about some Hilco subcontractors’ previous work.
Chaos ensued in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood in spring 2020 when Hilco’s subcontractor imploded an old coal plant, causing dust to billow across the working-class Mexican American neighborhood. Reports from last summer also show a dust cloud billowing from a Hilco coal power plant site in New Jersey.
A Hilco representative at the community meeting did acknowledge the Chicago dust-cloud incident, which she characterized as “very unfortunate.”
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