A long overdue emergency medical services (EMS) facility, that will serve the Seaport’s rapidly growing population, broke ground last week.

The $13 million two ambulance bay facility, located in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park adjacent to Pier 10 on Dry Dock Avenue, will fill a gap in public services that have lagged behind the commercial and residential development of the South Boston Waterfront.

Announced in March, 2022, construction on the facility finally began this January.

City Councilor Ed Flynn, who has been advocating for the construction of this facility for the last 8 years, emphasized the importance of bolstering emergency response capabilities in the area.

“Basic city services, infrastructure, should lead the way in development,” Flynn said in an interview over the phone. “Currently the EMS station on West Broadway serves the neighborhood. With the traffic and the difficulty at times getting to the South Boston Waterfront, not having a physical presence makes it challenging.”

Ambulance response times have been slowly creeping up across the city, rising from a targeted median response time of around 6 minutes for life threatening emergencies such as cardiac arrest and severe bleeding, to a median 7.4 minutes in 2023, the most recent report available. South Boston makes up an increasing percentage of those EMS calls as well.

“In the past decade, emergency calls in the South Boston Waterfront area have doubled, and the demand for services continues to climb,” said Caitlin McLaughlin, director of media and public relations for the Boston EMS, in a statement over email.

Flynn said that despite his persistent advocacy for bringing more public services to Seaport, it has been challenging to get such projects into the city’s capital budget and only by the constant efficacy of the community and community leaders do such projects eventually get approval.

Flynn hopes construction of public facilities won’t stop here. Seaport is also still lacking a dedicated fire station, public library and public school.

Such lagging public facilities are actually a barrier to the continued commercial development in the area.

Flynn said that many potential developers and businesses have expressed reservations about locating there without knowing when such services will be reliable.

“Constant advocacy, support, engagement, and residents as well, reaching out, asking and requesting and talking about why it's important,” Flynn said. “It takes everybody working together. That's why projects are successful, the collaboration between city and state agencies if necessary.”