On Tuesday evening local and county officials, community members and Caltrain executives all gathered at the new Downtown Transit Center to usher in the new millennium and San Mateo's place in it. The event was catered by an area restaurant and featured a live swing band.
"It's the kind of transit center that is worthy of our new century and new millennium," said San Mateo County Board Supervisor Mike Nevin as he addressed the packed room. Nevin went on to say that with the new facility and like-minded projects that Caltrain readership will quadruple.
The new transit center has been in the works since 1996. The construction has been going on since Jan. of 1999. The facility wears the ticket price of $18 million and has been a joint project between the city, Caltrain and the Joint Powers Board.
San Mateo Vice Mayor John Lee addressed the audience by saying, in reference to the transit center and other projects, that the city is "Getting a lot of mileage out of [the public's] money."
The project was in part supported by a .5 cents sales tax from county residents.
There were several officials onhand talking with community members including representatives from the San Mateo Police Department -- who will be occupying one of the available spaces at the new facility with a satellite station.
The architect for the project, Belgrid-born Ivana Micic, said they achieved what they wanted to do with the project, in terms of aesthetics and land-use. "We were trying to accomplish making this place look like a traditional station. Giving it a sense of arrival," Micic said.
When commuters exit the train, they will be greeted on the West by the Transit Center and a large sign that reads San Mateo. On the east side of the railroad tracks is a mural of a horse-drawn carriage racing a train. The owner of the building presented the city with a proposal to have the mural painted. It took over month to complete -- and the city did not foot the bill for the painting.
The station is lined with palm trees and there will also be an underground tunnel connecting the east side of the station and west -- both northbound and southbound commuters will therefore have access to the facilities.
"One of the things Caltrain wanted was that when you were on the train and it stopped you knew you were in San Mateo. That's why the sign is so big," said Project Manager for the city of San Mateo Harry Hecht.
Hecht has been chiefly in charge of the project from conception to finish. He has worked for the city and was the Project Manager for the train station in Emeryville.
The transit center is partially open and taking passengers, however, the interior spaces are not finished -- neither is the east side of the railroad station.
The east side of the station will be a mirror image of the west side, according to Hecht. There will be palm trees and a single canopy. San Mateo will begin taking proposals for retailers to occupy the transit center as of next month. The project is slated to be completely finished by December -- the shopping season.
The project, in the words of city officials, go hand-in-hand with much of the revitalization of downtown. <
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