Feds award $20 million to restore old Fresno train depot. How it ties in with high-speed rail

A $20 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration will help pay for restoration of downtown Fresno’s historic Southern Pacific train depot and creation of plazas that will eventually tie in with a future high-speed rail passenger station.

The grant award to the California High-Speed Rail Authority is coming from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) program. The Fresno depot project is one of 162 to receive a share of more than $2.2 billion in Wednesday’s announcement by the Biden administration.

“The project will renovate, modernize and preserve the … station, a historic passenger depot building,” according to the DOT announcement. “The project will also provide electric vehicle charging infrastructure and space for future transit charging in anticipation of the future California high-speed rail multi-modal station.”

The depot was built in 1889 but closed in 1971 as a result of declining passenger travel by rail, according to the structure’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“The historic depot structures, which have seen a lack of investment for 50 years, will be returned to a state of good repair,” the announcement stated.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority had sought $25 million from the RAISE program, which awarded grants nationwide based on competitive merit.

Jennifer Mitchell, the FRA’s deputy administrator, noted that the agency has already contributed about $3.5 billion toward California’s high-speed rail program. The grants announced Wednesday by the Department of Transportation, she added, “will strengthen supply chains, improve roadway safety, invest in our workforce and ultimately get people and goods where they need to go safely and efficiently.”

The Biden administration, Mitchell said, “is committed to delivering high-speed rail in America and providing more Americans with the world-class passenger rail that they need and deserve.”

What’s planned for Fresno’s depot?

The grant covers about 60% of the anticipated $33.2 million cost of the station renovation.

Plans being developed for the high-speed rail authority envision a sleek, modern passenger station with sweeping lines, a landscaped and elevated terrace, and a terminal with retail and restaurant offerings for passengers and visitors. The historic depot will be incorporated into the development of the bullet-train station complex.

Upgrades for modern accessibility and seismic standards are included in the plans for the depot restoration. Plans also call for development of two plazas – one on the H Street side of the future high-speed rail station, another on the G Street side of the tracks in Chinatown – area as part of “early site activation” efforts to entice visitors to downtown and the neighboring Chinatown district long before high-speed trains begin running sometime between 2030 and 2033.

The old depot sits on the H Street side of the Union Pacific Railroad freight tracks between Fresno and Tulare streets.

Margaret Cederoth, the rail authority’s director of planning and sustainability, told The Fresno Bee last year that the hope is to get people used to thinking that the train station site is “definitely be a place to go to even if you’re not taking the train.”

“What’s exciting about the RAISE grant is that it allows us to accelerate that time frame,” Cederoth said Wednesday in Fresno. “We anticipate to have the historic depot renovation construction start in 2025 and wrap up by 2026.”

“We also want to be moving the plazas along to be ready in the 2026 time frame … so these places are ready in advance of high-speed rail service,” she added.

How architects will reconcile the historic Queen Anne-influenced architecture of the 134-year-old depot with the modern style of the high-speed rail station is yet to be determined. “I think that’s one of the things they want to unpack, how the designs can complement each other,” Cederoth told The Fresno Bee on Wednesday. “But there’s also the opportunities in the plazas, to use elements of that to really complement the historic structure, because that’s really the ‘door’ into the complex.”

Also uncertain is what may eventually occupy the building, Cederoth told The Bee. “We may just do a core and shell so a tenant can come in and do their own improvements, or we may fully fit it out for something,” she said.

Project’s significance for Fresno

The Fresno station is anticipated to be a centerpiece of an interim high-speed train line now under construction in the central San Joaquin Valley, with other stations planned for Merced, Madera, Hanford and Bakersfield. A Merced-Bakersfield route is proposed to be the first operational segment of what is ultimately planned as a fully electrified line of trains connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles via the San Joaquin Valley at speeds of up to 220 mph.

Operations on the Merced-Bakersfield line are currently scheduled to commence sometime between 2030 and 2033. The latest cost estimates for construction of the Valley segment range between $29.8 billion and $32.9 billion.

Fresno leaders hailed the grant as a step toward reducing blight in the downtown and Chinatown districts of the city.

“This building represents the growth and the connection from our home in the Central Valley to the region, the state and the country,” said Tom Richards, a Fresno businessman and chairman of the state rail agency’s board. “These stations serve as a connection and a community gathering place for people of all ages and from all walks of life.”

Others cited the future high-speed rail station’s potential to reconnect Chinatown and southwest Fresno to the downtown core. “Too often we’ve seen transportation corridors divide communities,” said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno. “That’s why it’s so important that we have the Chinatown Fresno Foundation talking about reuniting our downtown together.”

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, whose district includes downtown, Chinatown and southwest Fresno, echoed that theme. “Rail and freeways have done an excellent job of connecting regions and connecting cities with one another,” he said, “but too often at the expense of neighborhoods, creating scenarios in which some neighborhoods were disinvested in like Chinatown and West Fresno.”

“What this project shows is that this is the entrance to Chinatown,” Arias added. “This project can prove that we don’t have to achieve progress at the expense of our history, at the expense of our neighborhoods, at the expense of dividing our community.”

Chinatown Fresno Foundation board chairperson June Stanfield, who owns a small business in Chinatown, said she was “pleased and happy” to see the FRA’s investment and other efforts Fresno is making to reinvest in southwest Fresno and Chinatown.

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer added that the grant reflects that “the city of Fresno is really on the map at the federal level in terms of how important high-speed rail is, not only to California but this entire nation.”

“This $20 million RAISE grant will go a long way toward enhancing the blighted area and serve to transform this depot into something that residents can be proud of in Fresno,” Dyer said.