Gall chosen for GATEWAY project
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 12, 2011 1:46 PM
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An artist's rendering shows part of Union Station and the GATEWAY bus transfer station.
The architect responsible for the design of the city's Union Station project was selected Tuesday by the Goldsboro-Wayne Transportation Authority to design its $4.5 million GATEWAY bus transfer station portion of the project.
"We recommended to the board an architect we would like to hire to design the transfer station -- David Gall, who is also designing Union Station," said authority Director Alan Stubbs. "The board voted to begin (contract) negotiations."
Stubbs said he did not know how much the final cost would be or how soon negotiations would be completed.
"We hope to have it (contract) ready to present to City Council by the end of February," he said. "We had two interviews and both were well qualified."
He said Gall was recommended because he was already working on Union Station and was familiar with the project and its logistics.
Along with serving GATEWAY, the transfer station would serve the Greyhound bus system. It will be a new building with waiting and ticketing facilities on the north end of the Union Station property.
The current transfer station is housed in an old fire station on Beech Street.
The city received six letters of intent in October from architectural companies interested in the project. After review, the list was narrowed down to two in November. The two were Gall of Winston-Salem and Moser Mayer Phoenix Associates of Greensboro.
Also responding were HH Architecture, Raleigh; Darden J. Eure and Associates, PA, New Bern; JKF Architecture, Greenville; and Anne Fahim Architectural Services PC, Raleigh.
The total capital cost for the bus transfer station is estimated to be close to $4.5 million. The construction cost is roughly $4.1 million and design is $400,000. Estimates for the transfer station were provided as part of the study completed by Martin/Alexiou/Bryson.
However, Stubbs said he thinks the estimate is too high and that the actual cost could be closer to $3 million or $3.5 million.
One factor that makes it hard to pinpoint how quickly the process will be completed is the fact that the authority "is still working on some grants," he said.
Those grants include $855,000 from the Federal Transportation Authority. The grant will require local and state 10-percent matches for a total of $1,068,750.
Also, in August Congressman G.K. Butterfield announced the transfer center would receive a $500,000 grant from the federal government in addition to $855,000 it had received in 2009.
Stubbs said that the earmark approved by the U.S. House was actually for $625,000 and not $500,000. Stubbs said he was uncertain if it had been approved by the Senate.
That money will also require 10-percent local and state matches, he said.