FALL RIVER – Acquisition of land needed to complete an extension of the MBTA’s commuter rail is one step closer to reality following a recent vote of the City Council.

Councilors voted unanimously Tuesday night not to oppose or object to the use of eminent domain in acquiring several parcels of land needed to extend train services into Fall River. The land, which the city currently owns, consists of roughly 7,600 square feet of property near the corner of Pearce and Davol streets.

According to a draft of the letter the city plans to submit to the state regarding the council’s vote, MassDOT and the MBTA will construct the Fall River Commuter Rail station on the site and an associated parking lot.

The land acquisition is part of the larger South Coast Rail commuter rail extension project, which is looking to extend the Middleborough/Lakeville line into Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford in its first phase and would see a total 26 trains operating for weekday service. Though the project means services will be returning to nine existing stations, the state will have to build six new ones, including the one that will be built of Navol Road. The full extension is planned to have a total of 10 new stations being built.

State officials estimate that the project’s first phase will cost roughly $935 million and be completed by late 2022. According to MassDOT, about 85 percent of that cost would be devoted to work in Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford. The full route, which would bring rail services to Stoughton, is estimated to cost $2.3 billion more and take an additional eight years to complete.

Bringing commuter rail trains into the state’s southeastern most cities has been an ongoing conversation in Massachusetts politics for years now, with Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack saying last year that the extension was coming “after more than three decades of lip service.”