Cape Wind has signed a purchase and sales agreement for East Marine, a Falmouth, Mass.-based marina that will serve as an operations and maintenance headquarters for the proposed 468 MW, 130-turbine offshore wind farm planned for Horseshoe Shoal, off the coast of Nantucket.
Cape Wind President Jim Gordon says the company will begin renovating and occupying the marina once the turbines are erected, which will be sometime in 2014. Cape Wind will hire 50 full-time operations workers – primarily local workers – to staff the site.
According to Cape Wind, East Marine's operations will continue unchanged for this winter's boat-storage season and for summer operations in 2013. After that, Cape Wind expects to begin the interior renovations of the marina's two buildings.
‘We found a good waterfront facility in a protected harbor in a town that is already on a world stage for excellence in marine science, with its institutions in Woods Hole, and town officials were very helpful," Gordon says. "It was the perfect combination.’
A purchase price was not disclosed, and the developer says the final sale is contingent on the closing of financing for the $2.5 billion project, which Cape Wind expects will occur next year.
Meanwhile, the Alliance To Protect Nantucket Sound – one of the project's longtime opponents – filed an appeal in federal court challenging the Federal Aviation Administration's recent determination of no hazard, arguing that the turbines do, in fact, pose a safety risk.
