BALTIMORE — Officials from Amtrak, the city of Baltimore, and the state of Maryland held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday to mark the start of a $150 million project to redevelop Baltimore Penn station, which will see the structure turned into a mixed-use development including office, retail, and residential and hotel space.
WYPR-FM reports Amtrak President Stephen Gardner said the project demonstrates the company’s commitment to the city.
“We are going to redevelop this station, and with that create an expanded opportunity for future growth and ridership, a vastly improved customer experience and revitalized civic space that’s woven into the fabric of this great community,” Gardner said.
The project, first announced in 2019 [see “Amtrak to spend $90 million on Baltimore station improvements,” Trains News Wire, April 5, 2019] will see the station built in 1911 receive its first makeover since the 1980s.
Plans call for a new three-story station facility to be built adjacent to the existing building, allowing redevelopment of the existing station concourse for commercial uses. More information is available at a website detailing the project.
another example of the idiots at AMTRASH screwing up a great station. they half assed it in the 80’s and now they will ruin it in the 20’s. No respect for PRR history ! glad I’m retired from that Zoo.
Amtrak is again passing up yet another historic stately railway station for a spartan facility as they did with Houston Union Station and St Louis Union Station.
Shame on Amtrak!
During my 4 years in Baltimore in the mid 1990s, I have many fond memories of visiting the historic Penn Station. While the interior was quite tired, the exterior still showed its grandeur. A bit of a shame that they could not or chose not to use the historic structure as the main entrance for train passengers. But most of all glad that they are finally refreshing the station and redeveloping the surrounding land.
This is more of the fluffy, frivolous, and cutesy that is the Moynihan Train Hall. Meanwhile the unsexy operational underpinnings of simply getting trains to/from north of Baltimore, replacement of the Baltimore Tunnels, goes unfunded. What the h*ll good does it do to to have this if one of the tunnels becomes unserviceable and train service is hugely compromised? I’d give a lot to ask that of the usual crowd of self-proclaimed VIPs who gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking.
Amen to that, but you’re practically speaking in a foreign tongue. Click on the link and read the official pronouncement. It is so heavily into BS newspeak that direct translation may not be possible.