The transformer on Leonard Street is hard to miss. The hulking steel box with faded green paint surrounded by decaying Jersey barriers looks out of place because it is.
The transformer was installed about 11 months ago to supply power to the Locatelli building at 73 through 89 Leonard St. According to Belmont Light General Manager Craig Spinale; it’s a temporary fix after the underground transformers failed.
Replacing the transformers isn’t simple. Belmont Light needs four units built to the exact size, shape, and voltage specifications. Normally, about a dozen or so companies supply transformers. For a number of reasons, when Belmont Light put the project out to bid, none of its usual vendors bid on the project, Spinale said. Working with the bid winner has been difficult, he said.
“We have been trying to get the right specifications for the kind of units we need,” he said. “So we are canceling that contract and rebidding the project.”The hope is that when the request for bids goes out this time, there will be more options available, he said.
According to an October 2023 memo from Belmont Light to the Select Board, the building’s power is provided by underground transformers that supply a different voltage than other buildings on Leonard Street. The building is the only one in town where an underground transformer supplies the voltage in question. Other buildings supplied with the same voltage, such as the high school, have above-ground transformers.
Belmont Light is responsible for maintaining the transformer and keeping spares on hand in case of emergencies. In February 2023, corrosion from water in the vault where the transformers are housed caused one of the three units to fail.
It was replaced, but another failure in March 2023 meant there were no spares on hand, so all the units had to be removed and the above-ground, pad-mounted transformer installed.
At that time, the search for a permanent fix began in earnest.
“We initially wanted a pad-mounted transformer on the sidewalk (on Leonard Street),” Spinale said. “But the Select Board rejected the aesthetics of that.”
The transformers are scarce. Even larger power companies such as Eversource do not keep spare units meeting Belmont’s specifications on hand, Spinale said.
Spinale said that, for now, the best-case scenario – after rebidding – has work beginning early next summer. Worst case? He doesn’t know when they will have the equipment needed or when the work can start.
Whenever it starts, the sidewalk will be redesigned to keep the vaults dry; according to Spinale, that means creating a sidewalk bump-out and a catch basin to deal with water.
Spinale said three transformers will be installed, and one will be kept as a spare, each costing $30,000.
“We know it’s there; it is not a project we have forgotten,” he said. “We are still working to secure the correct transformers.”
