Construction work gets started on Raleigh’s second downtown bus station

Richard Stradling
·3 min read

Raleigh’s train station is on one side of downtown, and its local bus station is on the other. What if they could be closer together?

GoTriangle takes a step in that direction Tuesday when it breaks ground on a new bus depot next to Raleigh Union Station. Known as RUS Bus, the depot will have eight bays for GoRaleigh and GoTriangle buses a short walk from where a dozen Amtrak passenger trains stop each day.

When RUS Bus opens in 2025, it will provide a second focal point downtown for local buses. GoRaleigh Station, where many of the city’s routes begin and end, is more than half a mile away near Moore Square.

Which bus routes will use which stations and how people will get from one station to the other will be determined before RUS Bus opens, said GoTriangle spokesman Eric Curry. The public will have a chance to weigh in, Curry said.

RUS Bus will anchor Union West, a 23-story tower with about 340 rental apartments, 460 parking spaces and ground-floor retail on the edge of the Warehouse District. Developer Hoffman & Associates is building Union West and the bus station on property owned by GoTriangle.

The transit agency’s predecessor, the Triangle Transit Authority, bought the 1.76-acre property on West Street with help of a federal grant in 2005 in hopes of building a commuter rail station on it. That version of commuter rail ultimately failed to win federal funding and was abandoned the following year.

But GoTriangle held on to the property. In 2018, it received a $20 million federal grant to build the bus station, which was seen as a key companion to the train station next door. Raleigh Union Station opened in 2018.

GoTriangle then sought a private developer for the project. Hoffman initially included a hotel in its plans for the site but changed course after the COVID-19 pandemic made demand and financing for a hotel less clear. Eliminating the hotel and its entrance and drop-off area also made it easier to design the bus station.

Hoffman has since scaled back the project further, from two apartment towers to one. John Florian, the firm’s executive vice president, says the changes reflect the evolving needs of the community.

“Since the original plans for Union West were created, there have been significant shifts in the market,” Florian said in a written statement. “The project has evolved to optimize and serve the needs of future residents, visitors and the greater community.”

As a condition for rezoning the property, the city required that 10% of the apartments be “affordable,” in this case priced for people earning 80% of area median income. Currently a couple earning no more than $72,550 would qualify for the affordable housing.

Union West will rise on what for a century was the home of the Dillon Supply Co. and an adjacent building on West Street. The two-story red brick buildings were among several that businesses built during the heyday of railroads to be near the tracks that converged on the west side of downtown.

As with other new buildings nearby, Union West will include parts of the old brick warehouse buildings it is replacing. Workers have braced the corner walls at West and Hargett streets and near the train station so they can be incorporated into the new building.

Workers have braced the walls of the former Dillon Supply Co. building on West Street in downtown Raleigh. The walls will be incorporated into Union West, a high-rise apartment complex being built next to Raleigh Union Station.
Workers have braced the walls of the former Dillon Supply Co. building on West Street in downtown Raleigh. The walls will be incorporated into Union West, a high-rise apartment complex being built next to Raleigh Union Station.