Connecting to a downtown core. Attracting retail and residential tenants. Parking, parking and more parking.
Three cities with ambitious visions for their rail stations offered advice to New Haven on Tuesday as the city looks ahead to a transformed Union Station.
New Haven’s Union Station rail hub is set for a revamp under a deal signed last month between city and state officials.
About $7.5 million will be spent over five years to make needed fixes to the station’s basement, parking lots and first and second floors to allow for more retail space and improved access. But city leaders and the state Department of Transportation eye much more development to transform the station and its blighted surroundings into a retail and residential hub.
“We hope to create something very, very special both for our community and the traveling public,” New Haven Economic Development Director Mike Piscitelli said.
With that goal in mind, the city and the state DOT hosted a public online forum to discuss rail station transformations around the nation.
Los Angeles showcased a soaring modern structure that will transform the city’s historic Union Station, a hub for rail lines, the city’s new transit system and regional bus networks.
Looking to the future, the station is also making space for high-speed rail as it undertakes a $2.3-billion makeover, said Jeanet Owens, a senior project manager at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
As befits its location, Los Angeles poured resources into a short, high-quality video showcasing the makeover as a major component of its outreach plans, Owens said.
Philadelphia’s $400 million restoration of its 30th Street Station features a partnership between the city, major nearby universities and the station’s owner, Amtrak. Amtrak has invited neighborhood groups to meet in its stations as part of efforts to make nationwide community spaces, said Gretchen Kostura, senior director of planning and development for Amtrak.
But White Plains offered the closest and most resonant example for New Haven. A small city with a major population of Metro-North commuters, White Plains has seen both a recent residential development boom and lingering issues with sluggish growth around its rail station.
More than 7,000 apartment units are currently under construction or in development in White Plains, which has a population of only about 60,000, said Planning Commissioner Christopher Gomez.
All those new apartments mean more demand for parking, which constrains development around the White Plains rail station, Gomez said. The COVID-19 pandemic has also thrown some of the city’s plans — formulated in 2019 — into doubt, with significant shifts in demand for office, retail and coworking space.
“We’re trying to be creative,” Gomez said. “How far are we willing to go as a city and a community to think outside the box?”
Doug Hausladen, executive director of the New Haven Parking Authority, said the city would first look for private-sector development partners to create a “world-class campus that puts the transit customer first in our once-in-a-generation redevelopment of Union Station.”
“Time will help us better understand the ever-changing needs of the commuter,” Hausladen said, “but good service and reliability will always be at the heart of the trip.”
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
