The city of South Bend took a step Thursday toward bringing passenger rail back downtown for the first time in a half-century.
In a three-property deal approved by the city’s redevelopment commission, the city will buy the historic Union Station next to Four Winds Field. If Amtrak agrees, it would become Amtrak’s South Bend station, which is now on the city’s west side near Honeywell.
Caleb Bauer, the city’s community investment director, told the commission that Amtrak has expressed “serious interest” in the move. Bauer said the project’s costs aren’t yet known but they’d reach into the tens of millions of dollars. He said the city thinks it has a good chance of winning federal grants to help pay for the project.
The city will pay entrepreneur Kevin Smith $2.4 million for Union Station. Smith saved the historic structure from demolition when he began renovating it in the 1980s after the last passenger train left the station in 1971.
The commission approved two other related deals. Across the street from the station, the city will give Smith $825,000 to remove lead and asbestos from the former Studebaker Administration Building. It’s been vacant since the South Bend School Corporation left it for new headquarters in 2005. Smith plans to waterproof the building to prevent further damange, replacing the roof and sealing its broken window openings.
For $1,000, the city also will sell Smith the former Claey’s Candy building that sits across Taylor Street from home plate of Four Winds Field. That will let Smith relocate some of his data center offices that are now housed in Union Station.
