Groundwork being laid for Fall River Depot train station

FALL RIVER – If you’re looking for action then take a ride on the east side of Davol Street.

You won’t see any bars or betting parlors. But if the thought of a new South Coast Rail train station gets your juices flowing then you won’t be disappointed.

To make room for a new parking facility and train station, work crews last week demolished a 106-year-old industrial and commercial building at 61 Pearce St.

They also during the summer knocked down an abutting, smaller commercial building listed as 825 Davol St. at the same 1.5-acre site.

The demolition work is preparation for building a train station called Fall River Depot — which was the name of a station at the same site that until 1958 had been part of an earlier version of Boston to Fall River commuter-rail service.

More than 200 parking spaces are planned for the Pearce Street lot that sits between Davol and Dyer streets. The existing “secondary” train tracks are above street level and depend on bridges to cross both President Avenue and Pearce Street.

The work being undertaken at the Pearce Street lot is part of a $159 million three-year contract awarded to multi-national construction company Skanska AB of Sweden and Acushnet-based D.W. White Construction Inc., the latter of which is handling demolition.

The two companies are also collaborating on building a train station in Freetown as well as a six-track “layover complex” in Fall River for storing trains.

The layover yard will sit on a large parcel between North Main Street and the Taunton River that had been part of the now-defunct Weaver’s Cove fuel-storage property closer to Route 79.

The barren, fenced-off site, which has been cleared of trees, was where the original St. Vincent’s Home orphanage operated from 1895 to 1972 until the new St. Vincent’s Home — now known as St. Vincent’s Services — opened in 1972.

The new commuter rail line linking Boston’s South Station to Fall River, Freetown, New Bedford and Taunton via Middleboro will be operational before the end of 2023, officials have said.

“This is an exciting time for us,” said Jean Fox, project manager for the South Coast Rail project.

The new commuter line will be operated and managed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Fox said the new Fall River Depot will feature handicap-accessible, high-level side platforms and a drop-off area for commuters being driven to the station; there also will be accommodations for bicycles and electric cars.

The parking lot at Pearce Street, she said, will be elevated and slope up to the train stop so that it “rises in grade to the high-level platform” above street level and will utilize stairs and ADA-compliant ramps.

Once the system is in full swing, Fox said, a total of 13 commuter trips per day will likely pass through Fall River.

The existing freight rail line is still used by Mass Coastal, a subsidiary of Cape Rail Inc.

Fox said Mass Coastal will continue to use the tracks but will have to accommodate South Coast Rail scheduling.

“Commuter trumps freight,” she said.

Fox says the state’s Department of Transportation owns the right of way on the rail tracks and eventually will transfer that authority to the MBTA.

Both the Pearce and Davol street properties where the train depot parking lot will be built previously had been taken by the city by tax title for unpaid taxes, according to registry of deeds records.

The $1.1 billion so-called Phase 1 MassDOT rail project has previously also been referred to as the Middleboro option.

The “Full Build Phase 2” version, the MBTA has said, would cost at least $3.4 million and wouldn’t be ready until 2030.

That version, which the MBTA says eventually will be built, would use electric instead of diesel engines and a rail line extending through Stoughton.

South Coast Rail is part of an $8 billion, 5-year MBTA capital investment program.

The new Fall River train station and its parking lot will sit close to the three-story Rivervue Professional Building at 775 Davol St.

Just south of that year-and-a-half-old dermatology and medical office building on the same side of the street is a vacant lot at the corner of Davol and lower Turner streets.

That site, which for years was home to the Davol Street Café, is being developed by local businessman Bob Karam to feature a six-story building with a BayCoast Bank branch as tenant on the ground floor and market rate apartments on floors two through six.