Federal authorities plans D.C. Union Station takeover : NPR

Because the Trump administration strikes to take extra management over the administration of Washington, D.C., it’s setting its sights on Union Station — a serious transportation hub and nationwide landmark that it already owns.

The Division of Transportation (DOT) introduced Wednesday that it’ll reclaim administration of the station, with modifications anticipated to be formalized in September.

DOT has owned the constructing because the Eighties. But it surely had lengthy outsourced the administration of its every day operations and industrial points to an area nonprofit, the Union Station Redevelopment Company. Amtrak took over these tasks final summer time — and it was on the launch of its new Acela trains that DOT introduced administration would quickly change arms as soon as once more.

“As an alternative of being a degree of delight, Washington’s Union Station has fallen into disrepair,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy mentioned. “By reclaiming station administration, we’ll assist make this metropolis secure and delightful at a fraction of the associated fee.”

Union Station serves a number of prepare strains, from Amtrak nationwide and regional trains to commuter rails for Maryland and Virginia. It serves some 70,000 passengers a day on greater than 200 every day trains, based on Amtrak, and homes dozens of outlets and eating places.

Duffy’s announcement got here precisely per week after Vice President Vance and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the station to thank Nationwide Guard troops stationed there as a part of the Trump administration’s unpopular crackdown on crime.

Because the administration officers walked by way of the Beaux-Arts constructing, heckled by protesters, they painted an image of Union Station as an particularly unsafe space. Hegseth known as it “a part of the epicenter” of crime, including {that a} first responder beforehand informed him it’s their No. 1 name location.

“You might have vagrants, you have got drug addicts, you have got the chronically homeless, you have got the mentally ailing who harass, who threaten violence, who assault households, and so they’ve executed it for much too lengthy,” Vance informed reporters. “This ought to be a spot the place you’ll be able to come and share a meal or buy groceries with your loved ones. It shouldn’t be a spot the place mother and father of young children are afraid to convey them.”

Whereas violent crime has been on the decline citywide since a peak in 2023, a number of incidents have been reported at Union Station this yr — together with a deadly capturing in its parking storage and what the Metropolitan Police Division known as “an egregious assault” straight outdoors.

There are not any energetic homeless encampments on the station, after the Nationwide Park Service cleared them in 2022 and established a no-camping zone. And whereas a lot of its shops and retailers closed in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, current years have seen a reversal of that development.

However the Division of Transportation says “sturdy route is required to revive this federal asset to its former glory.” And, in contrast to most of the different federal interventions occurring in D.C., this one appears to have native assist.

Mayor Muriel Bowser informed reporters on Wednesday that Union Station wants a minimum of $8 billion price of repairs, which town can not afford to make — a problem she mentioned she spoke to Trump about after his reelection. She mentioned federal funding would profit your complete area.

“If it is nearly administration, I might take into account that the 1st step,” Bowser mentioned. “If it is about what Union Station wants for its whole transformation, that may be an incredible initiative for the federal authorities to tackle.”

Administration has modified over time

When Union Station opened in October 1907, it was the biggest prepare station on the planet, with a terminal of about 200 acres and 75 miles of tracks, based on the Virginia Railway Categorical (VRE).

The extravagant constructing, with its white granite, gold leaf-adorned vaulted ceilings and Ionic columns, set the stage for many years of D.C. structure. It hosted historic occasions and quite a few presidents at a time when prepare journey was the primary mode of transportation within the U.S.

Along with a transportation hub, VRE says, it was additionally a “metropolis inside a metropolis.” Over time, the constructing housed a variety of facilities, together with a bowling alley, mortuary, baker, butcher, lodge, liquor retailer, Turkish baths, nursery and silver monogramming store. By its heyday within the early Forties, the station was serving as much as 42,000 passengers every day, its web site says.

However issues modified after World Warfare II, as vehicles and planes grew to become extra fashionable and accessible modes of long-distance journey. As Union Station fell into bodily and monetary disrepair, the non-public firm that owned it appeared for an additional means to make use of the house.

Within the mid-Sixties, the federal authorities took over the constructing and later started development to make use of it as a Nationwide Customer Middle for the upcoming U.S. Bicentennial celebrations. The middle opened on July 4, 1976, however did not draw the large crowds officers had anticipated, and, deemed a failure, closed in 1978.

Union Station says its “low level” got here in 1981, when heavy rain triggered elements of the already-leaky roof to collapse, crashing into the primary ready room and forcing the station to shut. As toadstools started to develop contained in the empty constructing, Congress was left to think about whether or not to demolish or protect it.

How is the station managed now? 

Congress saved the station by passing the Union Station Redevelopment Act of 1981, which tasked the transportation secretary with overseeing “the rehabilitation and redevelopment of the Union Station complicated primarily as a multiple-use transportation terminal.”

The act led to the institution of the Union Station Redevelopment Company (USRC) in 1983. The nonprofit was charged with restoring and preserving the station’s architectural significance, sustaining its long-term perform and enhancing its retail and facilities.

After a three-year renovation venture, a restored Union Station opened its doorways in 1988, this time with three ranges of retail house and over 100 outlets and eating places. The USRC has managed it ever since.

Final July, Amtrak took over station administration and operations below a sublease from the USRC, following a years-long authorized battle with the true property firm that managed its industrial areas.

Amtrak mentioned on the time that the transfer would enable it to proceed with long-planned renovations, together with including extra seating for patrons, establishing an data sales space in the primary corridor, increasing signage all through the station and enhancing boarding processes on the primary concourse. It opened a momentary ready room for ticketed passengers in November.

DOT mentioned Wednesday that it’s “renegotiating a cooperative settlement” with the USRC and Amtrak to resume federal management of the station.

“I stay up for working intently with our group at Amtrak and the Union Station Redevelopment Company to focus our consideration on Union Station and make it a world-class transit hub,” mentioned U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation Steve Bradbury.

What’s going to change? 

Duffy informed reporters on Wednesday that Amtrak will proceed working within the “railroad areas of the station,” whereas the federal authorities will management the remainder of it.

“We wish Amtrak to run trains; that’s their experience,” he mentioned. “They don’t seem to be nice at managing these different properties … So let’s allow them to give attention to their major objective, which is to get you from Level A to Level B on time, safely, effectively.”

The division mentioned in its announcement that it’ll “leverage the accessible industrial points of Union Station, below the direct administration of USRC, to reinvest in Union Station.”

It says it’s going to tackle the constructing’s infrastructure wants, which embrace enhancements to its elevators, lighting and safety, in addition to “changing the roof and different main programs.”

“There’s quite a bit to do and sadly there is not the cash accessible,” Bradbury mentioned at Wednesday’s occasion. “We have to maximize the retail income of the station, the income of the station as an occasion house … We have to get the station on steady monetary footing and we have to tackle these acute capital wants of the station.”

Bradbury mentioned the division has a plan to do this throughout Trump’s time in workplace.

“We then need to set the inspiration to open the doorways to a stupendous growth of the station sooner or later, most likely by way of a … public-private partnership, with a stupendous new passenger concourse,” Bradbury mentioned.

Such a plan was already within the venture growth stage: The Union Station Enlargement Challenge, which might reconstruct your complete railyard, passenger platform and concourses, amongst different modifications, over the course of greater than a decade. It obtained $24 million in funding from the Biden administration late final yr.

Duffy mentioned, “we share that imaginative and prescient for the long-term” however the administration is shelving that plan as a result of it has “plenty of unrealistic parts to it,” together with the $10 billion price ticket.

He reiterated that the division will prioritize the station’s “quick wants” earlier than it considers a brand new imaginative and prescient for an growth, however mentioned such a plan will seemingly contain extra non-public funding.