Published: May 24, 2008 01:10 am      

DEVELOPMENT: GLDC backs Union Station

The owners of the Union Station ruins are moving forward with plans to restore the shell and fill it with commerce and train passengers.

Mark and Michele Davidson of North Hollywood, Calif., bought the shell two years ago with the intent to someday restore its original outer design and status as a community hub.

“Someday” advanced on the calendar once they hired a local point man, Clinton Brown of Buffalo, to help secure some financing for a project that’s estimated roughly as a $2 million to $3 million venture.

Brown just obtained the agreement of Greater Lockport Development Corp., and likely will get the same from the City of Lockport, to support two state grant applications that, together, seek in excess of $1 million public funds to jump-start restoration.

“You didn’t think I was going to go away, did you?” Mark Davidson said cheerfully in a Friday phone interview. “If I keep chiseling away at it, it’s going to happen.”

Initially, Brown, a historic architecture specialist, is working on writing the grant applications for Union Station Corp. He projects a plan to restore the exterior of the designated historic landmark, use part of the site as a train boarding area and turn the rest into a restaurant and events center.

Davidson said he has had some conversation with members of the Medina Railroad Museum directors’ board about its excursion train using Union Station as a boarding point and ticket sale area; he’s also talked with Tamre Varallo of Spring Lake Winery about getting a “wine train” going to boost the Niagara Wine Trail. Brown suggested there’s also potential for Union Station to host trains from the west — that is, Niagara Falls.

But the idea, however promising, needs cash to get off the drawing boards. Davidson has some money of his own to get site work started but won’t consider taking on private investment partners until the grants are “locked in,” he said. “How would I repay people if the grants fell through?”

Davidson, a set designer for Touchstone (Disney) productions who’s nearing retirement eligibility, said he wants to square away financial affairs on the West Coast and move his family to Lockport, Michele’s hometown, relatively soon. The recent writers’ strike was a setback, he said, and it’s compounded by the prospect of a threatened actors’ strike.

Still, he has been working on acquiring an electric streetcar that he envisions taking people between Union Station and Lockport Locks & Erie Canal Cruises on Market Street. Rail travel simply is in his blood, Davidson says — he once worked in a roundhouse and his grandpa was the last operator of the electric streetcar system in St. Louis — and he knows he’s far from being the only aficionado.

“It will take the whole town to build what I want to build — and the whole town will benefit from it when it happens,” he said.

Since only municipalities and not-for-profits can approach the state for grants, GLDC agreed last week to be the applicant, and the City of Lockport likely will be its sponsor, as Union Station Corp. goes for about $1 million from the Transportation Enhancement Program to stabilize and renovate the more than 100-year-old shell. Brown said TEP covers 80 percent of the cost of rehabilitating historic transportation facilities, and it’s expected grant recipients will be named by the end of this year.

Also through GLDC and the city, Union Station Corp. will pursue a state Environmental Protection Fund grant of $600,000, GLDC Executive Director William Evert said.

GLDC previously secured grants for two previous Union Station owners but returned the money when the owners’ plans fell through or strayed from public-funding objectives. Brown suggested he doesn’t see that happening this time.

“So much of this is in the public interest — to see that building restored to beauty, to see jobs created,” he said. “It’s a great project for the region, especially because of the rail line.”

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.