Union Station terminal will open to travelers this June

March 16, 2017 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

Congressman Richard Neal spoke to the press and invited guests at Union Station.



SPRINGFIELD – In a tour of Union Station designed for local press as well as for business leaders, city officials and others on March 6, it was announced the formal opening for the facility would be June 26, preceded by a celebration gala on June 24.

The restored and renovated Union Station will be a regional intermodal transportation center with tenants including Amtrak and the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority. In 2018, Union Station will feature additional rail service with a commuter line that will connect Springfield to Hartford and New Haven.

There are three retail tenants committed to the building and Kevin Kennedy, the city’s chief development officers, others tenants will be announced.  Above the terminal are several floors of office space.

Armando Feliciano, chair of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA) which has overseen the renovations, told Reminder Publications the SRA is “very close” to finalizing a contract to bring Peter Pan Bus Lines into the building.

“They are a business. We are a business. Everyone is looking out for their business,” he said.

Feliciano said there have been “naysayers” about the project but he is proud of the five years of effort to convert the vintage terminal, built in 1927 and closed since 1973, into a facility that will serve the region.

Congressman Richard Neal served as the emcee for the press conference, noting his involvement in the re-use of the building, which started in 1977 when Neal chose the location to announce his first run for public office, the City Council. He recalled he had to hire a crew to clean the station and another to bring electricity back into the terminal area for the campaign event.

One of his campaign promises was to find a re-use for the building. When he was elected mayor in 1983, he continued the effort with the SRA taking the station by eminent domain in 1989.

A remediation of asbestos and a new roof to prevent leaks was undertaken in 1999.

He described the various false starts along the way, but emphasized the support of the project from former Sen. John Kerry and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy as vital in preserving the federal earmark that funded much of the $95 million renovation.

Neal also noted his pride in “the opportunity to participate in a ‘never happen’ moment.”

He recalled coming to Union Station while growing up in the city. “It was bustling when I was a child – bustling.” He pointed to the corner where the lunch counter was located and recalled how porters would seen with carts of mail unloaded from the trains.

Part of the event was to call attention to the murals created by the Springfield Museums and Edward Pessolano of Design & Advertising Associates that tell the history of transportation in the city, not only detail the rise of rail travel from the first station in 1841 to the development of the Indian Motocycle and the GeeBee airplane.

In one corner of the main terminal is one of the original baggage carts, used to bring suitcases off of trains to waiting passengers.

The long closed tunnel linking the terminal on Frank B. Murray Street to Lyman Street has been completely restored. Work has started on restoring the Lyman Street entrance and lobby area currently being used by Amtrak. Officials said that area should be completed in April.

Timothy Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission said in a written statement, “As we look to shape our collective future, which is the core of what sound planning must be all about, the importance of a revitalized Union Station cannot be over-stated. Indeed, now that Union Station is fast approaching its grand opening to the public, we can better understand and appreciate that it’s an intermodal terminal that will: connect us with the nation’s densely populated Northeast Corridor; anchor the northern passenger gateway to the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail line that Connecticut is set to launch in 2018 and; stimulate a broad array of both development and redevelopment projects in the heart of Springfield’s downtown. Longer term we can look forward to Union Station being the linch pin of an east-west passenger rail corridor that would link Boston, Worcester, Palmer, Springfield, Hartford and New Haven and ultimately the means by which to travel by rail across an international border into Montreal.”

Share this: