As part of the station renovation, which will be funded by proceeds from the redevelopment, a new entrance will be opened on Clinton Street on the west side of the station, to access a food court and retail space.
The council voted to approve a Planned Development proposal which includes 1.5-million square foot, 50-story office tower and a 1.5-acre public park on land south of the station now occupied by a parking garage.
In a statement, Ray Lang, Senior Director of Amtrak, said the next steps will be to work with the development community and the city “to activate the upper floors of the headhouse Building to unlock the value of that asset for the benefit of the neighborhood and the Amtrak network.”
Lang said Amtrak has also invited Metra, the city and others to partner in seeking federal grants and other funds to fully reconfigure portions of the station’s concourse and other areas heavily used by Metra customers. The station serves 120,000 Amtrak and Metra passengers each week day.
The Metropolitan Lounge was relocated. Murals are being repaired. Amtrak is currently in the process of completing the renovation of the skylight of the Great Hall. Other renovations have taken place, including the conversion of the former Women’s Lounge into the Burlington Room, which is used for public events. The sweeping marble stairways leading from the Great Hall’s main waiting room up to Canal Street were replaced.
In response to overwhelming criticism, a plan was scrapped to build a modern seven-story vertical addition, which would have housed 404 apartments. Instead, the station will get a major renovation of floors 4 to 8 of the headhouse and a 9th story penthouse addition for two hotels comprised of 400 rooms combined.
The penthouse will not be visible from the street, officials with Chicago-based Riverside Investment and Development and Convexity Properties insisted. Amtrak selected Riverside and Convexity in May 2017 to redevelop the station and surrounding properties.
Officials said the project is estimated to be worth $900 million and is expected to create 5,100 construction jobs and 480 permanent jobs. Construction is anticipated to begin the fourth quarter of 2019 and is expected to last three years.
According to officials, the plan represents a “major step forward toward the goal of realizing the full value of Amtrak’s real estate holdings in Chicago.” The redevelopment of underused property in the neighborhood was a key proposal in the city-led Chicago Union Station Master Plan that was released in 2012 through a partnership that included the Chicago Department of Transportation, Amtrak, Metra, the Regional Transportation Authority, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Amtrak will invest some of the proceeds from the real estate transaction to activate a portion of the undeveloped spaces around the historic Great Hall for restaurants and other services, according to spokesman Marc Magliari. The dollar amount is not available yet, he said.
This will include the creation of a “transformational” new entrance to the headhouse from Clinton Street on the west side of the station that will greatly improve Americans with Disabilities Act access and allow the station to meet the needs of the business and residential areas in the West Loop.
The penthouse would encircle, but not block, the station’s 219-foot barrel-vaulted skylight that soars above the Great Hall. The skylight is currently undergoing renovation.
The plan to create the new entrance from Clinton Street calls for interior and exterior renovations to a section of the station that has been closed off since a massive fire in on July 26, 1980. This area of the station was formerly occupied by the Gold Lion restaurant, once the site of a Fred Harvey restaurant.
The fire took the life of a Conrail employee working in the building. A Chicago Fire Department helicopter rescued six people from the roof of the building, a Chicago Tribune news story at the time said.
In 1969, Penn Central Railroad, the then-majority owner, demolished the adjacent concourse and built an office tower. Left on the lower level was a labyrinthine concourse that has proven to be too inadequate for Metra and Amtrak passengers.
In 2016, the city completed work on the Union Station Transit Center, a new off-street CTA bus boarding center just south of Union Station that provides protected boarding area for transit riders and an underground connection to the station.
Union Station, with its multi-columned exterior, was completed in 1925. It was designed by Daniel Burnham and successor firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White.
I have been through there a few times and its a huge nothing with an attached “penn station” dismal underground thing where you are required to board. Just copy 30th Street in Philly or Union Station in DC. Train stations that allow passengers to see daylight and breathe fresh air in the waiting area.