(The following story by Tim Landis appeared on the State Journal-Register website on August 21, 2010.)
NORMAL, Ill. — The community of Normal expects to have a four-story, $43.2 million transportation hub open downtown in time for the first high-speed trains between St. Louis and Chicago next summer.
Much like in Springfield, the idea of a “multi-modal” facility that combines train, bus, shuttle and other mass-transit services in a single location has been in the works for at least a decade in Normal.
Unlike in Springfield, which is waiting on resolution of the best route for high-speed rail through the city, construction is well along.
“It was about 10 years ago when we first began to plan the redevelopment of our central business district. A key part of that plan was a transportation facility that would be a focal point for a number of other developments,” said city manager Mark Peterson.
Construction started about a month ago and is scheduled for completion by June 2011. There also will be retail and municipal office space, public meeting areas and a 400-car parking garage.
The existing Amtrak station will be torn down to make way for the project. In addition to having passenger trains, the facility will serve as the hub for mass-transit buses and interstate bus services, including Greyhound.
Shuttles also will run to Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, as well as to O’Hare International and Midway airports in Chicago.
The site adjoins Constitution Trail, a 30-mile bike and recreation path that cuts through the heart of the community, and the campus of Illinois State University.
“We were hoping to create a pedestrian-oriented environment. We wanted a place where people felt comfortable walking and using public transportation,” said Peterson.
He said officials discussed how additional freight trains might affect traffic congestion, but that there was no real alternative to the existing Union Pacific line.
Economic stimulus
As in Springfield, federal economic stimulus money and the push for high-speed rail gave a quick jolt of cash to a project that had been mostly on the drawing board.
Normal received a $22 million stimulus grant early this year. With that addition, federal funding will cover about $33 million of the cost, and $1.2 million will come from the state. Normal plans to issue revenue bonds to cover the rest.
There was no question where the facility would go.
“We did purchase the land a number of years ago in anticipation this would be the site,” said Peterson.
A ceremonial groundbreaking this month drew representatives of Amtrak, the Illinois congressional delegation and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who called Normal a “showcase community for the potential of high-speed rail.”
Uptown Normal
The transportation hub is part of a much larger redevelopment project begun in 1999 that eventually resulted in renaming downtown as Uptown Normal. As the original outline put it, the downtown “was showing signs of blight.”
A tax-increment financing district was created to help pay for road and other improvements, as well as to attract private development. The city also approved a sales tax, hotel/motel tax, food and beverage tax to help pay for the work.
Longtime business owner Jim Schifeling said the transformation has been significant.
“A lot of the one-story buildings have been replaced by multiple-story buildings. A lot of them have retail, office and apartments above that,” said Schifeling, who opened Acme Comics in the area in 1997.
The shop adjoins a Marriott Hotel & Conference Center that opened in 2009.
Schifeling said the site was previously home to “two strip malls that had broken concrete, shattered glass and weeds, and there was nothing in them.”
While the area remains popular with ISU students, Schifeling said it no longer has the feel of the traditional college “strip.”
“There’s a lot more family things to do. Instead of just smelly college bars, now there’s bars and restaurants,” he said.
Joliet planning, too
The city of Joliet is applying for a $25 million federal grant to help pay for an estimated $42 million transportation hub along that community’s downtown Amtrak route, said planning and economic development director Kendall Jackson.
As in Normal, the route is not an issue. In fact, Kendall said the improvements will ease a bottleneck created by the crisscrossing of two freight and two passenger lines downtown.
“The improvements would provide separation for passenger movement,” said Jackson, who added that plans are to consolidate mass-transit buses at the facility. There also would be airport shuttles and links to the Chicago mass-transit lines.
The Joliet facility is part of a larger downtown redevelopment effort that includes converting parts of the existing Amtrak station for ballroom and meeting space. The station is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Long-term plans include restoration and expansion of the Will County Courthouse, also downtown. Jackson said the project will include efforts to draw additional residential and retail development to the area.
“It’s part of our central area plan … for adaptive reuses,” said Jackson.