$10 million sought to renovate Union Station
The proposed $10 million renovation of historic Union Station, seen as vital to the success of the new downtown park, could be financed with MAPS 3 sales tax proceeds.
Like diversion of $9 million last fall for a convention center complex parking garage, the money would go to a project outside the list of MAPS 3 projects promised to voters.
Yet advisory committee leaders and others view parking and a revived Union Station as essential to deriving full value from taxpayers’ investment in the most expensive of the MAPS 3 projects.
When the new convention center district opens, the public will have around $700 million wrapped up in a new hotel, the new garage, and the MAPS 3 convention center, park and streetcar system.
While the city has pressed ahead with the revitalization of the blighted area along S Robinson Avenue, Union Station’s place in the plans has remained unsettled.
The story behind that goes back to at least 1989.
According to a story that year in The Oklahoman, the railroads abandoned the 1930s-era depot in the 1960s. By the mid-1970s it had been “virtually wrecked,” thanks to vandals and neglect.
It was restored at a cost of about $3.5 million for offices and warehousing by businessman Thurman Magbee. A decade later it was deeded to bankers in lieu of foreclosure.
By late 1989, the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority had acquired the station for $1.4 million, using a federal mass transit grant.
Which explains why transforming Union Station into what many people think it should be — the crown jewel of the MAPS 3 park — is so difficult.
The grant used to buy Union Station requires that its primary purpose remain transit-related.
Park designers picture it as a space within the park for social gatherings and receptions, with a restaurant and terrace a stone’s throw from the park’s lake.
Think of it, MAPS 3 Citizens Advisory Board Chairman Tom McDaniel said Tuesday, as you would think of Tavern on the Green, the iconic restaurant in New York City’s Central Park.
To not restore the historic structure — to hang a sign on the door barring the public — would be a shame, or worse, said Miles Tolbert, a MAPS 3 park subcommittee member.
“If we don’t do something,” he said, “I hate the idea ... that someone might come to the park, to enjoy this park we’ve put so much into and find themselves disappointed.
“As they cross the bridge over the lake on their way to this Union Station — ‘Surely something exciting is happening there’ — and then be told no, it’s closed, it’s nothing but city offices, you can’t come in.
“In some ways, the park will be incomplete,” he said, “and people will be truly disappointed in their experience there.”
City officials have researched ways to erase the federal restrictions on use of the building.
That process will continue.
It will be up to the city council to decide whether to set aside the $10 million for renovations.