The hardest job in Washington: redeveloping Union Station
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Doug Carr led the Moynihan Train Hall project in New York. Photo: Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
It'll take 13 years, estimates say, and cost three times as much as One World Trade Center. It may define whether America can still build public megaprojects — this being the once-in-a-generation overhaul of Washington's Union Station.
Why it matters: Average citizens want to know if they'll even be in town — or alive — to see it done.
- "It is not a fantasy," says Doug Carr, who moved his family from Brooklyn to Northwest D.C. to take the reins two years ago. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
The big picture: Carr is in charge of modernizing the 116-year-old gateway to the nation's capital, and the transportation heart for a metropolis of 6.3 million people.
- In the Big Apple, he worked on the WTC project before helping build the Moynihan Train Hall — a widely lauded, on-time, on-budget Beaux-Art pantheon to U.S. public rail.
Here's the problem: This tremendous modernization of Union Station — making it a high-speed rail hub, tripling passenger capacity at what's already the country's second busiest rail terminal — will cost an estimated $8.8 billion.
- And come January it'll confront an Amtrak-wary GOP in Congress, without which it can't proceed — engineering feats aside.
The Moynihan — with its $1.6 billion price tag — offers a blueprint only to a point: It was a stressful project, but it had a strong public booster, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who wanted to prove his state could get it done. He was in the ear of project managers, nudging and muscling through plans.
- At Union Station, the building and the politicking fall to Carr.
Catch up quick: Carr is CEO of a little-known entity called Union Station Redevelopment Corporation. It owns the project — not Amtrak, or the D.C. mayor or the president or Congress, who delegated management of the station to USRC in 1983.
Zoom in: To win support and funding, Carr has to work both local and federal Washington.
- His sherpas include Anthony Williams, the former mayor who leads the pro-business Federal City Council organization. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton are key drivers in Congress, pushing a crucial bill to unlock more federal funding.
Raised in North Jersey, Carr started his career working for JLL in Chicago. He returned to New York for the WTC redevelopment, then worked through public-private development deals like Hudson Yards.
- "The Power Broker" — Robert Caro's seminal portrait of New York's most controversial urban planner — is required reading for him these days, he told me over lunch.
State of play: The project has completed 10% of its design phase. The concept is to preserve Union Station's historic hall. The 53 acres behind it will be turned into a vast concourse, with a train hall, bus terminal, underground areas for parking and pick-up/drop-off.
- The D.C. developer Akridge owns air rights to deck over the train tracks and build a mini-neighborhood in the sky.
Right now, USRC is using a newly won $24 million grant for studies like soil analysis, to pinpoint where foundations need to be deep versus shallow.
What they're saying: From Boston to D.C., "economic development forms along rail lines," says deputy mayor Nina Albert, a member of USRC's board.
- "There is great will and recognition of the importance to the entire eastern seaboard."
Yes, but: Over the next decade, everything has to go right. Political buy-in and funding, yes, Carr says, but also a management squad that "gels like a championship-winning sports team."
- It will sometimes feel like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. What Amtrak might want — say, expanded waiting areas for its clientele — can be at odds with what suburban lines MARC and VRE want, like amenities for on-the-go commuters.
- Council member Charles Allen, for example, successfully pushed to tweak the designs to scale down parking, an effort to boost cycling and transit use in the city ward he represents. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky recently pressured Union Station to not pare down its retail offerings.
How will Donald Trump and Republican control of Congress affect the project?
- "It's hard to tell," Carr says, channeling diplomat-speak.
Trump's a builder from New York.
- "Yeah. He has to look no further than Penn Station Moynihan Train Hall as an example of what can be done."
💭 Town Talker is a weekly column about money and power in Washington. Tell me about the talk of the town: [email protected]