USDOT put $465.8 million into Washington Union Station on May 28, 2026, the largest federal commitment to the 1907 Daniel Burnham building since Amtrak took over the master lease in 2022. The money isn’t going to the long-horizon expansion. It’s going to the structure that’s already standing.
Project Scope
Replacement of the 108-year-old roof. Repairs to the parking garage and the station interior. And a full rebuild of the passenger concourse, Amtrak lounge, ticketing areas and retail. The Concourse Modernization Project is the package already in the ground: it reopens sightlines that 1980s and 1990s retail infill closed off, and rebuilds circulation from the head house out to the platforms. This is separate from the Washington Union Station Expansion Project, which would reconfigure the track deck and add a new train hall and bus facilities, and which USDOT restarted planning for in 2026 on an 11-to-14-year horizon ending somewhere between 2035 and 2038.
Why It Matters
Union Station is Amtrak’s second-busiest station and a National Historic Landmark, so every roof detail runs through a preservation review a commercial building wouldn’t face. The concourse work is the harder half. It’s an occupied-station renovation on a floor plate handling intercity rail, commuter rail, Metro and a bus terminal, which means the sequencing constraint isn’t structural, it’s throughput. You can’t close the path from the Great Hall to the platforms.
The split between this package and the expansion is worth reading carefully. Federal money is landing on the building that exists, on a schedule measured in years, while the track-deck program is still in planning on a schedule measured in decades. For contractors, that’s where the near-term work is.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Amtrak (master lessee) |
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| Owner / Client | Union Station Redevelopment Corporation / USDOT |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Funding Source | Public (Federal) |
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