(rshsdepot) Springfield, IL

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From The State-Journal Register.
 
Original article and photo at:
http://www.sj-r.com/homepage/x342404731/Aldermen-not-sold-on-Amtrak-station-
plan  
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Aldermen not sold on Amtrak station plan
Union Pacific didn’t know it owned building, they say
 
By DEANA POOLE
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted May 18, 2009 
 
Some aldermen on Monday questioned plans to spend $571,500 in downtown tax
increment finance money to refurbish Springfield’s Amtrak station.
 
The proposal, which was forwarded to the full city council for debate
tonight, calls for the city to pay 80 percent of the $714,368 project, which
largely consists of maintenance work.
 
During a meeting of the council’s public affairs committee Monday, Mike
Farmer, director of the city’s office of planning and economic development,
and Bruce Ferry, the project’s architect, described drawn-out, frustrating
negotiations among the city, Union Pacific and Amtrak. They said Union
Pacific didn’t even know it owned the station.
 
“If Union Pacific, if it was left to them, I think the station would fall in
on itself,” Ferry said. “They have really virtually no interest in
maintaining it. At the same time, it’s obviously an important gateway to the
city.”
 
A spokesman for Union Pacific couldn’t be reached for comment.

“Our intent was to enhance a gateway into the city, to clean up kind of
what’s an otherwise growing-dilapidated building,” Farmer said. “If you look
at the parking lot, for example, it’s in sorry shape.”
 
Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards said it seems as though the city was prepared to
give money to a company that doesn’t want it.
 
“They didn’t even know they owned it,” he said. “We’re doing all this stuff
on the backs of the taxpayers. Quite frankly, what do the taxpayers get out
of this?”

Other aldermen questioned whether Union Pacific has been paying taxes. The
city attorney said she would look into the matter.
 
The brick depot, along the Third Street tracks between Jefferson and
Washington streets, was constructed by the Chicago and Alton Railroad in
1895. It is on the site of the original station where Abraham Lincoln’s
funeral train arrived in Springfield in May 1865.
 
Proposed work includes landscaping, parking lot upgrades and lighting, tuck
pointing, painting and concrete work, and platform lighting. Interior work
would include painting, plaster, plumbing and lighting repairs, heating and
air-conditioning upgrades, removal of an old boiler and improving
accessibility for people with disabilities.
 
After the meeting, Ward 4 Ald. Frank Lesko said he’s undecided on how he’ll
vote, saying he wants to know whether Union Pacific has paid taxes and what
the building is worth.


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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1889
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org