Union Station may become Denver’s gateway again — if it stays on track
“The original Union Station was built in less than two years and cost $525,000. It will take five times as long and cost nearly a hundred times that much to again make it the gateway to the city.
The plan to buy Union Station was radical, even a bit crazy.
For starters, the station had multiple owners: real-estate company Trillium Corporation, the Union Pacific Railroad and local real-estate mogul Pat Broe. And the property surely wouldn’t come cheap: The city, in a 1988 deal to save the station from potential demolition, had tweaked zoning on the site to allow for the possible construction of two 22-story towers that added millions to its value. Beyond that, FasTracks had yet to be proposed, or bankrolled. In fact, just three years earlier, in 1997, transit boosters had crafted an ambitious proposal for light rail in and around Denver called “Guide the Ride”; voters had handily rejected it.
“It was a tough, tough time,” recalls Regional Transportation District general manager Cal Marsella. “Some [RTD] boardmembers called it a white elephant.””
Warner, Joel. Westword 14 August 2008.