Some of the members formed a new alliance, the Open Space Initiative Group, which vehemently opposed the buildings on the grounds that they would diminish the station's visual significance and limit opportunities in the plaza. "This is one of the most important buildings in Colorado, and one of the most sterile parking lots around could be made into one of the most exciting places in Colorado," says member Bert Melcher. "The plaza needs a lot of room to do what postage stamp-sized spaces can't do. Those are okay for neighborhood purposes, but for something like this, it needs to be big."
The remaining Friends of Union Station held a different view, and they formed their own group, Union Station Advocates, to continue championing the station's public spaces and embrace the wing buildings. "We think it will help activate the space in the plaza and frame the station," says co-chair Luke O'Kelley. "In good urban design, you want to frame a space so it is not strictly open space running into highly trafficked streets."
Courtesy of the Union Station Neighborhood Company
An artist's rendering of what Union Station will look like in 2012.
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Peter Park (left), Cole Finegan and Tom Gougeon help keep the project on track.
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Then there's the historic station building itself. While the developer is planning to spend $17 million fixing up the worn-around-the-edges structure, none of the trains or buses will flow into or under the station, as originally proposed. "The plan takes people away from the station," says UCD planning and design Professor Jeremy Németh, who oversaw many of the student teams that created concept plans for the station. "There is no reason to go into the station. If we are going to save this building, we need to celebrate it, not keep it as a 'look but don't touch' sort of thing."
There will be no danger of that, insists Gougeon. "It has to work as a destination in its own right," he says of the building, which will house ticketing booths, information desks, baggage and check-in facilities, as well as shops and restaurants. "If its only purpose is to be a place for people to pass through on the way to transit, it won't work. If there are interesting things happening in the station, then it will work."
Still other interested parties are worried about the 379 parking spaces in front of the station that will be removed to make room for the plaza — spaces LoDo desperately needs. A parking study commissioned by the LoDo district neighborhood organization concluded that 344 more spaces are needed on nights and weekends just to meet current demand, and that, with the additional folks who'll be drawn to Union Station, the parking deficit will swell to 1,400 spaces in the near future.
"The replacement of the surface lot in front of the station with a European piazza-type area is a great thing for LoDo," says LoDo district boardmember Mike LaMair. "But we are concerned about the impact on businesses like the Tattered Cover and the Wynkoop Brewery" — not to mention Amtrak and the Ski Train, which depend on the Union Station surface lots for parking for their riders.
One possible solution, suggest LoDo reps, would be to open more spaces to the public on nights and weekends in the new parking structure the developer will build at the station to serve planned office buildings at the site. Another alternative could involve Market Street Station, the underground RTD bus terminal at 16th and Market streets. Once Union Station's redevelopment is complete and bus operations have been moved to the new station's underground facility beneath 17th Street, RTD has agreed to sell Market Street Station to the Union Station Neighborhood Company for $11.4 million — not a bad price for much of a square block in the heart of LoDo. The agreement stipulates that 20,000 square feet on the property must be set aside for open space, but civic boosters propose that the developer reserve essentially half the block for a new public park, with a parking garage underneath it, akin to celebrated urban parks like San Francisco's Union Square or Boston's Post Office Square.
"I know people are interested in parking," says Gougeon, adding that expanding night and weekend access to the station's parking garage could work. As for the fate of Market Street Station, "that's down the road a bit," he explains. The best solution is getting people to switch from cars to public transit — which is the whole point of redeveloping Union Station in the first place: "Truthfully, we are spending millions on transit so we don't have to get here by car."
In 2004, just as Union Station's partner agencies were nailing down the project's finances, building costs began to shoot through the roof. Steel prices nearly doubled, and concrete costs skyrocketed, too, all thanks to booming overseas construction markets in places like China. On top of that, the country's economic slowdown meant less tax revenue coming in to pay for public development. This one-two punch sent many civic projects reeling; last year RTD officials admitted that the cost of FasTracks had swollen from $4.7 billion to $6.1 billion, and they recently indicated that the price may grow again.
It became clear that Union Station, an undertaking shortchanged from the get-go, was going to require even more money than expected to build and would likely produce less sales-tax revenue.
