The money spent to date is insufficient for the complete restoration of the Union Station building. According to a recent Tampa Tribune article, "....more money is needed to finish second floor offices, which will be available for lease. Eventually, preservationists hope to raise enough to restore the canopies at track side platforms, landscape the grounds and renovate the baggage building behind the station. They would like to see a restaurant move into the baggage building to serve the downtown lunch crowd. "
UPDATE:
4.30.2001
An article by Brad Smith of the Tampa Tribune, poignantly titled: The little station that might, makes the following observations concerning Union Station:
- "..10 years after taxpayers began shelling out $3.9 million for the makeover...the lone Amtrak agent who works at Union Station is often alone..."
- "Amtrak axed its Tampa-Orlando trains just before Union Station's 1998 facelift. The station had not been used at all since 1984."
- "Amtrak's strategy, hinging on federal subsidies, is to restore two trains a day from Tampa to Orlando. But there is no timetable, said spokesman Kevin Johnson."
- "If time is money, flying wins. The lowest Tampa-New York Amtrak fare, available Monday and Tuesday, is $86. It's a 23-hour trip, compared with start-up airline JetBlue, which zips nonstop from Tampa to John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2 1/2 hours for about the same price."
- A $600,000 state grant will fund renovation of the 3,250 square-foot baggage claim building, starting with bids in June. Once fixed up, officials hope to lure a restaurant. Another $25,000 is sought from the Las Vegas-based Great American Station Foundation to study how to develop the site. That includes the 5-acre rail yard, now owned by CSX Transportation Inc..."
CONCLUSION
For the past several years, the Tampa Tribune has dutifully reported the Union Station rehabilitation cost at somewhere between $2,200,000 and $2,600,000. Now we learn that $3,900,000 is not enough. It was also previously reported that the Union Station building contains something less than 18,000 square feet -- 17,600 square feet being the most oft quoted number.
Since $3,900,000 is now the latest reported, incomplete renovation cost [April 30, 2001], rail preservation activists have thus far squandered an incomprehensible $221.59 per square foot [ $3,900,000/17,600 square feet = $221.59 per square-foot] of Taxpayer funds on their unfinished obsession with the restoration of Union Station.
Renovations Cost In Perspective:
- Tampa's luxurious Two Mack Center, Hillsborough county government's present pink " Taj- Mahal", was purchased as an unfinished "shell" for a "regal" $27,000,000 ($65 per square foot). It was subsequently finished to its lavish, present-day grandeur for an additional cost of about $55 per square foot. Thus, a complete finished cost of about $120 per square foot.
- A recent deal to sell what is perhaps downtown Tampa's most prestigious, commercial, river front property -- NationsBank Plaza -- for $67,000,000 ($130.64 per square foot) reportedly fell through because the buyers were concerned that they were paying too much for the property! If $130.64 per square foot is uneconomic [i.e. too costly] for one of Tampa's most prestigious commercial properties, NationsBank Plaza, the prospects for an anachronistic and functionally obsolete $221.59 per square foot train station, sans Amtrak, are non-existent!
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Bottom line, Tampa's "Rail &
Preservation Fetishists" have neglected real civic need and effectively
conspired to pillage Taxpayer funds on behalf of their puzzling rail obsession.
They have also attempted to funnel millions in "Corporate Welfare"
to a failed Amtrak and, its thoroughly discredited mass transit paradigm.
- finis -
