Amtrak Construction Schedule Delayed

Construction activities for the renovations to the Lancaster Amtrak station will not begin until February or March of 2009, NewsLanc learned this morning.

A construction groundbreaking had previously been pushed back from "late summer" to "fall" to "December," but has been delayed again.

Jim Cowhey, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Planning Commission, explained that the engineering team ran into some unexpected issues related to the historic nature of the building, and had to update the project specifications to account for things like hazardous material mitigation.

The total cost of the renovations remains $12 million.

The construction activities are expected to take 18 months to complete.

A website for the project asserts that parking will not be reduced during construction. Cowhey confirmed this, saying that they hope to phase construction in such a way that parking will not be reduced from current levels. Ultimately, parking will be expanded by 62 spaces.