Expressway drivers can watch as carpenters work

The striking $19 million, 75,000-square-foot home of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters is being readied for a Feb. 1 opening on the edge of the expressway. At drivers’ eye level, and less than 30 feet from the southbound travel lane, will be oversize windows that look in on the training center for area carpenters.

“We purposely put in big windows,’’ said Mark Erlich, executive secretary of the union. “We want this to be a showcase where people can see young men and women learning their trade.’’

The attention of northbound motorists has already been captured by a glowing 32-by-21-foot electronic billboard on the south-facing side of the building, which was turned on two months ago. The sign changes images about every 12 seconds, alternating between public service messages and representations of the carpentry trade.

The 23,000-member union is also using the electronic sign to bolster political candidates. In the fall, messages of support for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino were displayed, and the union plans to showcase its backing of Democratic US Senate candidate Martha Coakley in January.

The entrance to the building, which was once a laundry facility for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, is actually on Dorchester Avenue.

While the expressway side of the building is flashy and futuristic, the Dorchester Avenue facade is a stately combination of cedar siding and pewter-colored metal panels, designed to blend in with the neighborhood near the Dorchester-South Boston border.

Erlich said the building’s dual design is meant to convey a message.

“We are both a traditional organization that has been around for over a hundred years, and we are a modern, innovative organization,’’ he said.

Times have been hard lately for the union. The recession and the sharp downturn in construction have caused unemployment among union carpenters in the six-state region to rise to between 25 and 30 percent, according to union officials.

“When the economy falls off a cliff, it lands on us,’’ said Erlich, who refers to the new building as the union’s own “stimulus package’’ for Boston.

The new building will also allow the union to consolidate its facilities. When the Carpenters Center opens, the union’s leased headquarters in South Boston and the Boston area training center in Brighton will close. The union’s main training center for apprentice carpenters in Millbury, Mass., will remain open.

The Carpenters Center also will contain a branch of the First Trade Union Bank and a vision center, where union members can receive eye care.

The new facility creates something of a “union row’’ off the Southeast Expressway in Dorchester.

Nearby are the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, the United Healthcare Workers East 1199 SEIU, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 223, and a training center of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers.

The Dorchester location is ideal for the carpenters, said Erlich, because it has parking and access to public transportation, and it gives the union a presence in Boston.

The carpenters union hired Suffolk Construction Co. to build the Carpenters Center. The general contractor renovated the 44-year-old building and added a third floor. The union is doing the interior finish carpentry itself with much of the work being performed by apprentices.

The building has had several different owners and most recently was used as a distribution facility for Dirigo Spice Corp. Although it was empty when the carpenters union acquired it, the facility still smelled of spices when work began, according to Erlich.

The high ceilings built originally for the laundry facility are ideal for the training areas, said Marshall Felix, project manager for Suffolk Construction.

“It was nice that we could reuse and adapt an older industrial building and avoid a full-scale demolition,’’ Felix said.

The union purchased the building in February 2007 for $5.6 million after searching for almost a decade for a property. Construction started about a year ago.

Early this week, Suffolk employees and apprentice carpenters and their supervisors were swarming the building, trying to make the Feb. 1 target opening.

Union steward Desmond Roach stood outside, in the bitter wind whipping off the expressway, admiring the building.

“It’s a great building and a long time coming,’’ Roach said. “We make it happen.’’

Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.