After years of planning and false starts, Amtrak has reached agreement with a developer to turn the upper three levels of Baltimore's historic Pennsylvania Station into a 77-room hotel, a first for an Amtrak-owned station along the northeast corridor.
Amtrak officials confirmed this week that they have signed a lease with Hospitality Partners of Bethesda that will enable the company to build and run a "boutique" hotel inside the 1911 train station while it continues to operate as a railroad terminal.
Construction of the $9 million project, called The Inn at Penn Station, is expected to begin by year's end and be completed by late 2010. It would be one of the first major revitalization projects to move ahead in Baltimore's 100-acre Charles North renewal area since Mayor Sheila Dixon unveiled a $1 billion "vision plan" to guide development seven months ago.
"It's good for the city," said M. Jay Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., which has been working to revitalize the area. "I think there's a real audience for a hotel in that location ... I look forward to seeing it."
Several U.S. cities contain former train stations that now house hotels, including Nashville, Tenn., St. Louis, Mo., and Scranton, Pa.
Baltimore's project would mark the first time a hotel has been created on the upper levels of a train station that continues to serve rail passengers in the Northeast. Amtrak stations in Indianapolis and Cleveland also contain hotels.
The inn is one of several steps that Amtrak, also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp., is taking to improve its properties in Baltimore.
Amtrak has leased space to Faber, Coe and Gregg of Secaucus, N.J., to run a Java Moon cafe and limited-menu branch of Dunkin' Donuts on the station's main concourse. Faber's operations will replace a coffee shop and cafe run by Eddie Dopkin's Crazy Man Restaurant Group, which left the building on May 22 after 17 years.
Faber, which also runs the station's newsstand, opened a temporary coffee shop this week and plans to open the permanent replacements this summer, according to senior vice president Roberta Rubin.
Amtrak is also preparing to hire architects and planners to complete a "highest and best use analysis" of the 185-space parking lot it owns north of the station, property that is considered a key to the area's revitalization.
