The Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority plans to take architects through the former Goodwill building at Huron and Cherry streets next week after closing on the building’s purchase last week.
TARTA plans to convert the 66,000-square-foot building at 612 N. Huron to a downtown bus hub. The $1.5 million purchase price is based on an appraisal TARTA obtained after Goodwill shut down its thrift store there and moved its downtown offices late last year to the former Brooks Insurance building on Madison Avenue.
James Gee, the transit authority’s general manager, told the agency’s board of trustees Thursday morning he has retained Stough & Stough, a Sylvania-based architecture firm, to develop plans for remodeling the building.
The extent of that work and how much it might cost remains to be determined, but Mr. Gee told the transit board he’s unsure about meeting a previously stated goal of having the facility operational by year’s end.
“Based on the remodeling extent, it’s likely we won’t be in until next year,” he said.
After the meeting, however, Mr. Gee said he’d like to have the buses running there — and off the existing Downtown Bus Loop — when TARTA makes schedule revisions and driver route assignments shortly before or after New Year’s Day.
The bus station will have a waiting room, snack bar, customer-service counter, and public restrooms along with office and conference space.
Bus lineups would occur on Huron and Cherry streets. Buses would continue to stop at other downtown Toledo locations as well, but the practice of having every route stop at four stations around the loop would be eliminated. Mr. Gee has said the loop’s elimination will save TARTA 60,000 annual bus-miles, while the station will offer passenger amenities not available at any of the existing stops.
Federal Transit Administration funding is expected to pay 80 percent of the renovation costs, he told transit trustees Thursday, and some of the local match could be covered by transportation-funding offsets the Toledo area receives because of toll collection on the Ohio Turnpike.
The local match toward the purchase, which closed March 27, includes city of Toledo funding for an environmental assessment of the building. The city also plans to spend $230,000 this year to convert Huron Street, now one-way southbound, to two-way traffic between Adams and Cherry streets to support the bus hub’s development and expects to resurface Cherry next year.
Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.
First Published April 5, 2018, 11:00 p.m.