I had to laugh-react this because… just of course the tower won’t start until 2026… IF it starts. Of course it’s just gonna be an incredibly ugly, unfinished concrete parking deck with a half-assed bus depot hidden underneath it for at minimum an entire year. This whole project has been a massive, just MASSIVE disappointment.
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#RUSbust is official
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Option to allow Hoffman to drop off from this project and a new RFP for any developer willing to build a mix-use project over the station?
There’s already an example of this in Charlotte, with the Epicenter were the hotel proportion of the project halted for years before it finally got a developer willing to develop a hotel.
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Yes and no, ideally a temporary station should just be built while those in charge figure out the logistics of designing to eventually accommodate Amtrak, a light rail line, and a commuter rail line, as well as residential and office immediately above.
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I’m not sure if the BUILD grant allows that (since I couldn’t find the full contract from briefly googling for it). But even if they do, Hoffman & Associates aren’t the only ones facing an uncertain economy - so it’s unlikely that other companies will have an easier time securing loans to do it any faster.
That was the original plan! The idea as of 2017 was to divide out the station-building process into three phases (and y’all thought RUSbus had lots of points of weakness 
); the first is the station platform as @apbassett said, to be followed by the passenger-facing parts of the station, renewed bus station for Greyhound etc., and other buildouts.
Since then, though, it seems like the city has quietly backed out of that plan. The City of Charlotte’s copy of the plan in the previous paragraph is no longer on their webpage for this project, and this 2024 Axios Charlotte report shows that no one really knows how this will proceed.
One more brief note about Charlotte: their recent purchase of the O-line for the proposed LYNX Red Line includes land to build more platforms at Gateway Station too. It’s also unclear if this further complicates the timeline for this project.
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You must have been stuck in the parking garage behind some slow moving patrons who lost their tickets.
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Sidewalks around RUSBUS are back open. Looking really nice! I think this will be a great bus station. It also seems like future construction work for the tower will be fairly isolated. Hoping to get some word on that soon.
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Great to hear the sidewalks are open again and the station is looking good! When you say the tower work will be “fairly isolated,” do you mean it won’t impact the bus station operations? Also, if they add extra parking levels on top of the deck, any idea how that might be handled without interfering with everything below?
Is the parking deck accessible then? I like exploring new decks and seeing a new view from the top.
Yep. I was worried that a lot of construction activity on the sidewalks/near the entrances to the bus station would make it a little less usable, but they built a single driveway at the middle of the block where I presume most of the equipment can filter in to the staging/construction area, which is now obfuscated by an opaque wooden fence. Not bad!
Unfortunately it is not – they actually did not build a driveway at the location of the parking deck ramp, it’s just a regular curb. So I can only assume this will open when the tower gets built. Though it might be possible to sneak up there on foot if the fencing is removed at some point.
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It’s ok, I will just scale the deck and parachute down
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Just checked this out for myself. My first reaction was something along the lines of, “Cool. They made these sidewalks pretty nice. These benches look pretty great.”
I then thought, “But why would they make the sidewalks so nice if they know that construction on the tower is coming soon? Unless…”
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Maybe once they start the tower portion, they’ll just put up one of those sidewalk sheds or pedestrian protection structures. I guess we’ll see - hopefully, we’ll find out something soon…! 
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There will be a lot of pressure on the city to keep this bus station safe, clean and desirable if they ever want that tower built.
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Is this shot taken from the W Hargett Street side or the S West Street side?
Even more so with the signage going up. It appears this will sit for a while in this state.
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Hargett Street, where the bus entrance/exits sit. They’ve removed the on-street parking on this block which I bet is needed for the buses to make wider turns in and out.
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