"SLEDGEHAMMER SESSION" SET FOR AMTRAK STATION RENOVATION

By Michael Horne

For the third time in my life, a Milwaukee train station will be demolished, and for the first time, it's a good thing.
Perhaps "demolished" is too strong a word for the fate that will befall the Byron Kilbourn Amtrak Passenger Station, (it is instead called a "radical transformation") but sledgehammers are implicated, and the unlikliest of a crew will be yielding them.
According to a press release from the Milwaukee Department of City Development, "Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Jim Doyle and U.S. Senator Herb Kohl will lead a special sledgehammer session on Monday, August 14th at 2 p.m. to mark the start of a $15.8 million renovation of Milwaukee's downtown Amtrak station into a dynamic intermodal transportation gateway."
The trio will be joined by Ald. Robert Bauman and State Representative Leon Young. For the most part these guys are none too nimble with their silver shovel duties during groundbreakings, and I can't quite imagine any one of them swinging a ten-pound sledgehammer to any particular effect.
The existing station, designed by Donald Grieb, was built in 1965 to replace the Milwaukee Road Union Station (1886-1964) of the one of two fabulous 19th century passenger depots of this city to be demolished in the 1960's. (The other was the Chicago & Northwestern Station, 1888-1966.)
Four decades later, the building remains one of the nation's newest passenger rail stations, (an indictment in itself of our nation's transportation infrastructure) and is a dismal, uninspired spot.
The folks at Eppstein Uhen Architects have designed a glassy, faceted replacement that, according to renderings, will dance with light.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation bought the building at 433 W. St. Paul Av. from the former CMC Heartland Partners, successors to the bankrupt Milwaukee Road, for $1.4 million around 2000, and Tommy Thompson, when governor, announced great plans for the facility, as well as a high speed train by 2010. Well, at least we're getting the station, if not the train.
The renovated building will "house Amtrak's rail connection, Greyhound Bus service and a potential future stop of the METRA commuter service from Chicago," according to the press release.
A true intermodal hub would also house trolley and express bus service, but this is not in store for the Milwaukee station.
The press release also says "visitors and commuters will enter and depart through a welcoming three-story glass atrium that offers ticketing kiosks, retail and food establishments, workspaces and user-friendly links to other transportation in Milwaukee."