Saving the Union
Train station should be prime candidate for MAPS 3 surplus
After writing extensively over the years about once troubled landmarks like First National, the Skirvin and the Gold Dome, one truth emerges: old buildings fare poorly when they go empty for too long.
Over the past several weeks, about $31 million in MAPS 3 surplus have been eyed by constituents of several competing projects.
About $12 million of the proceeds already are being allocated, with $4 million approved in August for completion of the streetcar system and operational enhancements.
The city council also is set to vote on a recommended $7.9 million for projects intended to give the Riversport Rapids rafting and kayaking park a stronger financial foundation.
Other requests as reported by City Hall reporter William Crum include more money for the Bennett Event Center at State Fair Park for adding audio and visual equipment and golf carts.
One candidate, however, seems to rise above the others in terms of potential success and risk with the historic Union Train Station threatening to become a costly problem for the city in the future.
Look at the drawings for Scissortail Park and Union Train Station stands in the middle of it, overlooking a plaza and the lake now under construction. It will be hard to miss, and yet, nothing is set to ensure the station a vibrant part of this new Oklahoma City.
We already know what can happen; water damage, vandalism, pigeons and unseen structural damage. And Union Train Station has survived one scare after another since passenger service on the Rock Island and Frisco railroads ended in 1967.
Credit late Oklahoma City businessman Thurman Magbee with the first save of the station, which opened to great fanfare in 1930 before falling victim to the decline of passenger rail and decline of the surrounding neighborhood just south of downtown.
Magbee, who owned an electronics distribution company, spent two years negotiating the building’s purchase, which followed 10 years of it sitting empty and falling apart.
After finishing what stands today as a topnotch preservation job, Magbee noted the 55,000-square-foot station was a “physical wreck” having stood empty for just a decade.
Windows were broken, their wooden sills rotted and the interior destroyed by vandals and neglect. Dozens of layers of paint covered original brass and copper fixtures and original woodwork. Plumbing had been torn out by thieves seeking metal.
Rooftop drains had stopped up early in the decade the building was empty. Rainwater pooled and stagnated on top of the roof that was too sturdy to collapse. Plaster hung in sheets or dropped in chunks on the floor. Original moldings were unrecognizable.
Just a decade. That’s all it took for the Union station to fall apart.
Magbee saved the train station, spending $3.5 million to buy it and then pouring his resources into restoring the historic architecture and building office pods in the middle of the giant lobby in a way that they can easily be removed and the area be restored to its original appearance. The 1980s were a harsh time in Oklahoma and Magbee’s company ended up deeding the station over to bankers in 1988, narrowly avoiding foreclosure. The Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority provided the next rescue, using a $1.8 million federal grant to cover 80 percent of the purchase price and about $200,000 in repairs.
In those early years of public ownership, transit officials unsuccessfully pursued a dream of making the station a multimodal hub that would include Greyhound buses, city buses and a potential future light-rail.
COTPA, however, kept the building in decent shape, though it never filled more than a fraction of the property. Currently COTPA has only six people working in the building. The obvious future for the building is to fully incorporate it into the sprawling Scissortail Park being built around it.
And now, with a MAPS 3 surplus available to be divvied out among the various projects, none compare to the Union Station in terms of its potential upside and downside.
An estimated $10 million is suggested for renovating the station into a community gathering spot and other uses tied to the park. That estimate includes removing the Magbee office pods and restoring the lobby.
But that federal grant remains an obstacle in getting such a deal done. MAPS 3 planners originally hoped to swap the grant to the Santa Fe station, now an intermodal hub, but federal officials denied that request noting they had already provided millions for the Santa Fe project.
Now the best shot at switching the grant status appears to be with the new streetcar barn built just west of the Union Station. But such a deal won’t be for $1.8 million, but rather the current value of the station. In 2013 the property was appraised for $3.5 million, and while that figure would have to be updated, it at least gives an idea of what sort of trade value is needed.
Six people is not the sort of presence needed to keep an almost 90-year-old historic building from falling apart. The sprawling station could provide some great opportunities for restaurants, retail, community and recreational use — if the transit restrictions are somehow moved or eliminated.
Magbee got the job done 40 years ago. It’s difficult to imagine any other use of the MAPS 3 surplus doing more to complement an existing project and prevent the risk of the station becoming a depressed, wornout eyesore in the middle of Scissortail Park.