Construction on a multimodal transportation center for the City of Trinidad, Colo., is currently expected to begin in summer or fall next year, the Trinidad Times independent reports. The planned center, to be owned by the city but operated by the South Central Council of Governments (COG), will allow ingress and egress from the city by train and bus and to COG's local transportation system.

The planned center currently has an estimated cost of $860,138. COG has tentatively secured about $872,500 for the center, a surplus of $12,362 in funds. Regional Community Development Specialist Mary Ann Romero said COG had secured the additional funds to offset an expected increase in costs by the 2011 construction time.

The one-story building, consisting of a waiting area, ticket booths and restrooms, is expected to have a total area of about 1,100 square feet.

The current train station, used only for train passengers, consists of a small pre-fabricated building located by the railroad tracks by Commercial and Pine streets. The previous station was demolished in the summer of 2007 after spending years deteriorating on the north side of the tracks. JR's Travel Shoppe on West Main Street currently serves as the de facto bus station in Trinidad.

The new multimodal transportation center is estimated to carry a construction and construction management price tag of about $375,000. Funding for the project comes from several sources, and toward the above amount, BNSF has committed to providing about $20,000, and COG's transit director, Tom Allen, acquired a grant for $150,000 from the Colorado Department of Transportation, as well as a Federal Transit Authority Livability Grant for $152,500.

COG is also looking to submit additional grant applications, in the form of another FASTER grant and a CDOT Enhancement Grant, to seek additional funding for the project.

The building's design is expected to cost about $51,000. Other costs include $49,109 for sewage utilities installation, $66,326 for gas utilities installation, $24,327 for electrical infrastructure and $30,148 in solar panels. Additionally, BSNF requires safety flagging to be in place during the project's construction, costing about $102,000.

COG is budgeting 15 percent in contingency expenditures, as well.

The city spent a number of years attempting to negotiate with Amtrak concerning a replacement train station, with Amtrak's contribution to the project fluctuating wildly. Within the past year, Amtrak had stated a willingness to fund only an arrival/departure platform in Trinidad, but then announced it would utilize federal stimulus funds to bid out the entire multi-modal transportation center. Having received bids for the center, however, Amtrak then reverted to its intent of funding only the platform in the amount of $1.2 million.

The new facility's construction has been delayed until later in 2011 because of COG having to seek the additional grant funding to make up for Amtrak's backtracking. "We lost a little bit of time in regards to what we hoping would be our timeline," Romero told the city council during a July 27 presentation. "We are still pursuing this project. We know it is very important to the economic vitality of our community in the tax base it will bring in and such, and the opportunity it will allow people to travel by rail, bus...and also supporting our own in-city transportation system."