Union Station goes Metro

Los Angeles’ Union Station—considered the “last of the great railway stations” in North America—will be bought by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for $75 million from its private owner, clearing the way for the fabled facility’s expansion.

Metro began negotiating its potential purchase of Union Station last November with owner Catellus Operating Limited Partnership. The deal, expected to be completed in April, includes 38 acres of land and 5.9 million square-feet of entitlements, giving Metro room to expand the site and generate lease revenues from transit operators and businesses. Several stores and restaurants (including Traxx Restaurant) operate out of station’s legendary main waiting room. With the purchase of Union Station, Metro adds to its current holdings of the adjacent Metro headquarters and the adjoining Patsaouras Transit Plaza.

Initially approved by voters in 1926 as an alternative to a proposed regional elevated rail system, Union Station finally opened in 1939. World War II kept the station busy as a regional hub for lines such as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. It also serviced the local Pacific Electric and Los Angeles railways. But the rail era would soon pass, giving way to a new age of air travel and the automobile. The Pacific Electric Red Car system was dismantled, and freeways began to increasingly dominate Southern California’s transit landscape.

Today, the pendulum has begun to swing back, with a network of new public transit lines in operation or under construction. Once again, Union Station finds itself at the heart of our regional transit network. The station currently serves Amtrak, Metrolink, the Metro Red and Purple subway lines, the Metro Gold Line light rail, L.A. FlyAway bus service to LAX, and many other Metro regional and local municipal bus lines serving the region.

Even if you’ve never visited Union Station, odds are you’ve seen it. Partially designed by the father-son architectural team of John and Donald Parkinson (who also designed Los Angeles City Hall), it starred in its own 1950 thriller Union Station. And it had supporting roles in plenty of others, including Blade Runner, Silver Streak, Speed, and Pearl Harbor, not to mention countless TV shows.

Posted 2/24/11