Ann Arbor City Council members got an unexpected surprise this week when they learned that the price tag for a new Amtrak station has shot up by $25 million.
The station, which has been in the talking and planning stages for more than 10 years, was to have cost $65 million, but now it is expected to cost $80 million.
Furthermore, the city will need to find additional funding sources to pay for design and construction work once an environmental assessment is completed.
The news came at a session at which the city’s chief financial officer said there isn’t enough money to do all of the capital projects that council has discussed.
The current Amtrak station on Depot Street is small and the city has been eyeing sites for a new station along that street or on Fuller Road near the University of Michigan Hospital.
In response to a question by Council Member Jane Lumm of how the project had ballooned in cost, city chief financial officer Tom Crawford had few details.
“This is not intended to be a project update,” Crawford said. “I just grabbed something that I saw and threw it in.”
City Administrator Howard Lazarus said discussions are continuing with the Federal Railroad Administration and that the environmental assessment package could be available for public review as early as next week.
Lazarus acknowledged that schedule estimates on releasing the report have been notoriously unreliable, “but I think we’re pretty close to the end.”
The city is still assuming that 80 percent of the money for the station will come from the federal government and 20 percent will be local funds.
