As the Trump administration moves to take more control over the management of Washington, D.C., it is setting its sights on Union Station — a major transportation hub and national landmark that it already owns.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced Wednesday that it will reclaim management of the station, with changes expected to be formalized in September.
DOT has owned the building since the 1980s. But it had long outsourced the management of its daily operations and commercial aspects to a local nonprofit, the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation. Amtrak took over those responsibilities last summer — and it was at the launch of its new Acela trains that DOT announced management would soon change hands once again.
"Instead of being a point of pride, Washington's Union Station has fallen into disrepair," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. "By reclaiming station management, we will help make this city safe and beautiful at a fraction of the cost."
Union Station serves multiple train lines, from Amtrak national and regional trains to commuter rails for Maryland and Virginia. It serves some 70,000 passengers a day on more than 200 daily trains, according to Amtrak, and houses dozens of shops and restaurants.
Duffy's announcement came exactly a week after Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the station to thank National Guard troops stationed there as part of the Trump administration's unpopular crackdown on crime.
As the administration officials walked through the Beaux-Arts building, heckled by protesters, they painted a picture of Union Station as an especially unsafe area. Hegseth called it "part of the epicenter" of crime, adding that a first responder previously told him it is their No. 1 call location.
"You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families, and they've done it for far too long," Vance told reporters. "This should be a place where you can come and share a meal or go shopping with your family. It should not be a place where parents of small children are afraid to bring them."
While violent crime has been on the decline citywide since a peak in 2023, several incidents have been reported at Union Station this year — including a fatal shooting in its parking garage and what the Metropolitan Police Department called "an egregious assault" directly outside.
There are no active homeless encampments at the station, after the National Park Service cleared them in 2022 and established a no-camping zone. And while many of its stores and retailers closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, recent years have seen a reversal of that trend.
But the Department of Transportation says "strong direction is needed to restore this federal asset to its former glory." And, unlike many of the other federal interventions happening in D.C., this one seems to have local support.
Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters on Wednesday that Union Station needs at least $8 billion worth of repairs, which the city cannot afford to make — an issue she said she spoke to Trump about after his reelection. She said federal investment would benefit the entire region.
"If it's just about management, I would consider that step one," Bowser said. "If it's about what Union Station needs for its total transformation, that would be an amazing initiative for the federal government to take on."
Management has changed over the years
When Union Station opened in October 1907, it was the largest train station in the world, with a terminal of about 200 acres and 75 miles of tracks, according to the Virginia Railway Express (VRE).
The extravagant building, with its white granite, gold leaf-adorned vaulted ceilings and Ionic columns, set the stage for decades of D.C. architecture. It hosted historic events and numerous presidents at a time when train travel was the main mode of transportation in the U.S.
In addition to a transportation hub, VRE says, it was also a "city within a city." Over the years, the building housed a wide range of amenities, including a bowling alley, mortuary, baker, butcher, hotel, liquor store, Turkish baths, nursery and silver monogramming shop. By its heyday in the early 1940s, the station was serving up to 42,000 passengers daily, its website says.
But things changed after World War II, as cars and planes became more popular and accessible modes of long-distance travel. As Union Station fell into physical and financial disrepair, the private company that owned it looked for another way to use the space.
In the mid-1960s, the federal government took over the building and later began construction to use it as a National Visitor Center for the upcoming U.S. Bicentennial celebrations. The center opened on July 4, 1976, but didn't draw the huge crowds officials had anticipated, and, deemed a failure, closed in 1978.
Union Station says its "low point" came in 1981, when heavy rain caused parts of the already-leaky roof to cave in, crashing into the main waiting room and forcing the station to close. As toadstools began to grow inside the empty building, Congress was left to consider whether to demolish or preserve it.
How is the station managed now?
Congress saved the station by passing the Union Station Redevelopment Act of 1981, which tasked the transportation secretary with overseeing "the rehabilitation and redevelopment of the Union Station complex primarily as a multiple-use transportation terminal."
The act led to the establishment of the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC) in 1983. The nonprofit was charged with restoring and preserving the station's architectural significance, maintaining its long-term function and enhancing its retail and amenities.
After a three-year renovation project, a restored Union Station opened its doors in 1988, this time with three levels of retail space and over a hundred shops and restaurants. The USRC has managed it ever since.
Last July, Amtrak took over station management and operations under a sublease from the USRC, following a years-long legal battle with the real estate company that controlled its commercial spaces.
Amtrak said at the time that the move would allow it to proceed with long-planned renovations, including adding more seating for customers, setting up an information booth in the main hall, expanding signage throughout the station and improving boarding processes on the main concourse. It opened a temporary waiting room for ticketed passengers in November.
DOT said Wednesday that it is "renegotiating a cooperative agreement" with the USRC and Amtrak to renew federal control of the station.
"I look forward to working closely with our team at Amtrak and the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation to focus our attention on Union Station and make it a world-class transit hub," said U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation Steve Bradbury.
What will change?
Duffy told reporters on Wednesday that Amtrak will continue operating in the "railroad areas of the station," while the federal government will control the rest of it.
"We want Amtrak to run trains; that is their expertise," he said. "They're not great at managing these other properties … So let's let them focus on their primary goal, which is to get you from Point A to Point B on time, safely, efficiently."
The department said in its announcement that it will "leverage the available commercial aspects of Union Station, under the direct management of USRC, to reinvest in Union Station."
It says it will address the building's infrastructure needs, which include improvements to its elevators, lighting and security, as well as "replacing the roof and other major systems."
"There's a lot to do and unfortunately there isn't the money available," Bradbury said at Wednesday's event. "We need to maximize the retail revenue of the station, the revenue of the station as an event space … We need to get the station on stable financial footing and we need to address those acute capital needs of the station."
Bradbury said the department has a plan to do that during Trump's time in office.
"We then want to set the foundation to open the doors to a beautiful expansion of the station in the future, probably through a … public-private partnership, with a beautiful new passenger concourse," Bradbury said.
Such a plan was already in the project development stage: The Union Station Expansion Project, which would reconstruct the entire railyard, passenger platform and concourses, among other changes, over the course of more than a decade. It got $24 million in funding from the Biden administration late last year.
Duffy said, "we share that vision for the long-term" but the administration is shelving that plan because it has "a lot of unrealistic elements to it," including the $10 billion price tag.
He reiterated that the department will prioritize the station's "immediate needs" before it considers a new vision for an expansion, but said such a plan will likely involve more private investment.
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