The company proposing to redevelop Quincy Center has reached a handshake agreement with a local labor council that governs the extent to which the project will be built by union workers.
The agreement, between Street-Works LLC and the Quincy and South Shore Building Trades Council, was reached after a five-hour negotiating session Thursday and announced during a city council committee meeting Thursday night.
Laborers packed a recent public hearing on Street-Works’ proposed $1.3 billion downtown overhaul to advocate for union job guarantees.
“As a Quincy resident, I can’t tell you how happy I am,” said James Fay, a business agent with IBEW Local 103 and member of the trades council. “The residents of Quincy are going to be well-represented on this job.”
Officials would not comment on the specifics of the deal Thursday because it had not been signed. The signing is expected to happen next week.
“We have a deal,” said Stephen Chrusciel, director of construction service for Street-Works.
The deal will be part of the sweeping Land Disposition Agreement that governs the Quincy Center redevelopment project.
A draft of the agreement submitted to the city council stipulates that 80 percent of the work will be done by union labor, and that at least a quarter of the construction jobs will go to laborers who live in Quincy.
The agreement needs to approval of the city council, which has been reviewing it in committee over the past two months. The final review session is set for Thursday, with a vote likely on Monday, Dec. 20.
Plans for the project, which Street-Works wants to complete by 2020, call for 1 million square feet of new office space, about 700 new housing units and 570,000 square feet of new retail and restaurant space.
The deal announced Thursday means that Street-Works agrees to pay the “prevailing wage” to tradesman it hires to build the project.
The state Department of Labor sets prevailing-wage figures for each county. Each figure is meant to represent an acceptable wage for the particular trade.
The Quincy project is expected to create 4,117 construction jobs and 5 million man-hours of craft labor. Every craft will be represented, from iron working to sprinkler fitting.
The project is projected to employ 750 workers per day when construction is at its peak.