Not a breaking update but rather, here’s what we know so far. I walked by the site recently and still nothing new since the groundbreaking took place in May. (that’s seven months ago)

It seems we’ve been going through a financial obstacle course with this project. All interested should jump to the project page on the city’s website where you will find this piece of information:

At the March 3, 2015 Council meeting, the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) team was authorized to proceed with bidding and finalization of a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) not to exceed $44,737,870.

In July and September of 2015, bids were received on the project which exceeded the estimate. The bid yielded a GMP of $60,000,000, which yielded a project gap of $15,300,000 when compared to the March estimate. Value engineering and steel rebid resulted in project savings, lowering the GMP to $54,700,000, leaving a $10,000,000 gap. Project partners have addressed the funding gap by identifying scope reductions totaling approximately $2,900,000. Remaining additional funding of $7,200,000 is required.

Various options were presented to Council at the Work Session on Oct. 20 and at the Nov. 3 City Council meeting, full funding, no scope reduction for Raleigh Union Station was approved with gap funding of $7,200,000, and a revised total project budget of $54,700,000.

*Union Station: Raleigh’s Multi-Modal Transit Center

The way I read it is that they wanted to do the project for about $10 million less than anyone was willing to do it for but in November, they figured it out.

Let’s have a good holiday season and then build a train station!

This past weekend, I stepped out onto the end of Martin Street real quick to see if there was anything going on at the Raleigh Union Station construction site. The photo above was taken on Saturday and shows no visible signs of construction. (except the street barricades)

Perhaps last minute plans are still being worked before crews start making progress. I remember that the new station will be funded through a variety of funds coming in different directions so maybe that’s a slow process.

It just seems to be taking longer than expected seeing as how the first groundbreaking announcement was for March 2015 only to be delayed until May 2015. Here we are in July and still waiting.

Staying positive still at this point though.