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Mass. Commits $12 M To Finish Springfield Union Station Project

Mass. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announces final funding for the $88.5 million redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal ( D-MA) looks on. Union Station has been a pet project of Neal's since his days as Springfield Mayor in the 1980s.
WAMC
Mass. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announces final funding for the $88.5 million redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal ( D-MA) looks on. Union Station has been a pet project of Neal's since his days as Springfield Mayor in the 1980s.
Mass. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announces final funding for the $88.5 million redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal ( D-MA) looks on. Union Station has been a pet project of Neal's since his days as Springfield Mayor in the 1980s.
Credit WAMC
Mass. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announces final funding for the $88.5 million redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal ( D-MA) looks on. Union Station has been a pet project of Neal's since his days as Springfield Mayor in the 1980s.

What officials said is the final piece of funding for a major transportation project in western Massachusetts was announced today in Springfield.

Massachusetts is committing the remaining funds needed to complete the redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield into an intermodal regional transportation hub. It brings the total amount of federal, state, and local funds for the project to $88.5 million.

Mass. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announced an additional $12 million for the project will come from MassDOT and the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.  It brings the total of committed state funding to nearly $40 million.

" We could not be happier to invest these dollars. We know an investment in Springfield is something you will leverage and stretch," she said.

Polito made the announcement at Union Station as construction work continued nearby. 

Work on the project to completely renovate the 90-year-old train station, which was closed to the public in 1973, started in 2012 during the administration of former Gov. Deval Patrick.  Polito said the Baker administration wants to see the project through because Springfield is strategically situated at the transportation crossroads of New England.

The new Union Station when it opens late next year  will be ready to accommodate up to two dozen additional daily trains connecting to Hartford and New Haven, where there is Metro- North service to New York City, according to Dana Roscoe, a transportation expert with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission.

Studies have been commissioned to determine the feasibility of commuter train service between Springfield and Boston.

The redevelopment of Union Station has been a priority of Congressman Richad Neal since he was mayor of Springfield in the 1980s.

" I would come through here as a child. It was a thriving transportation hub for western Massachusetts," Neal recalled.

Neal secured $43 million, most of it through earmarks, for the project.

"The public side of this is coming to a conclusion. Now,we need to spur on some private investment," said Neal.

The project to redevelopment Union Station was unveiled in 2008 with a price tag of $65 million. Officials blame the more than $23 million increase since then on unforeseen construction problems due to the age of the building.

The project may not be on the original budget, but it is on time, according to Christopher Moskal, executive director of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority which owns Union Station.

" We are on time ," said Moskal.  " The garage is fully underway. As of the announcement today you will see the entire restoration of the interior  and exterior of  terminal building underway in the next two weeks.  We are moving toward an opening in October 2016,"

The new Union Station will have 66,000 square feet of commercial space for lease, a 26-bay bus terminal, a completely renovated terminal building, a new rail boarding platform, and a six-level parking garage.  Officials say the new facility will support 200 permanent jobs.

Copyright 2015 WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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