- April 7, 2026
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For more than 100 years Tampa Union Station has watched the trains come and go, their red tail lights fading into the warm Florida dusk as waves of passengers scramble through its grand waiting room and out its stained glass entryways, eager to meet loved ones or catch Ubers on the curb of downtown Tampa’s chaotic North Nebraska Avenue.
Built in 1912, the building carries the weight of its history in its bricks. Paint peels like sunburnt skin. Termites eat away at ornate cornices and crown molding. Benches creak and echo across the grand waiting room — once a vibrant hub of Tampa transportation now, mostly, an empty shell.
Recent months, though, have seen life return to the station as construction begins on a roughly $6 million facelift.
In 2025, the City of Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency committed $4 million to restore the national and local historic landmark, and Florida awarded the project a $408,000 grant. Improvements will include new windows, updated restrooms, roof repairs, termite tenting and refurbishing the red brick exterior that defines the building’s Italian Renaissance Revival architecture.
Architect Jerel McCants is overseeing the project, expected to be completed by contractor Collage Co. sometime this fall.
The public got a firsthand look at designs for the complex — last renovated in the 1990s — during a recent tour of the building’s construction led by the Tampa Bay Community Design Center and The Friends of Tampa Union Station, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the station,
“If it weren’t for folks like Friends of Tampa Union Station and advocates for this facility it would have been torn down decades ago. But it’s here, it’s a jewel and a functioning rail station right here in Tampa,” says Collage President Rob Maphis. “The overriding objective is to keep as much as possible of those things that are so significant for this station”
Those are things like the few remaining glass door knobs that bear the TUS insignia, or planters original to the building that a member of Friends of Union Station rescued from a front lawn in Sebring after spotting them on Facebook Marketplace. Even the interior yellow and green paint colors have been meticulously matched to the original interior design for the building. Not only is Tampa Union Station designated as a local historic landmark, it is also a National Historic Landmark and registered on the national Registry of Historic Railway Stations, That means every update to the building has to be cleared by architectural review committees and receive a “certificate of appropriateness,” says Maphis.
The station has already worked with Amtrak to make upgrades to its outdoor rail platforms, and was also recently awarded an $8,000 grant from the Frank E. Duckwall foundation to install “museum-like” displays inside the grand terminal, says Brandie Miklus, president of Friends of Union Station.
Once renovations are completed, the city can begin planning for Tampa Union Station’s next 100 years, says Miklus.
The vision is for the historic building to become a neighborhood hub, connecting downtown’s Water Street district to Ybor City and Darryl Shaw’s upcoming Gasworx development. Milkus says she can envision the building and its adjoining, recently renovated baggage building becoming home to coworking spaces, event spaces or cafes. Soon, she says, the City of Tampa plans to issue a request for proposals for potential uses for the building.
There are already plans for Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency to commission a local artist to design a sculpture to be displayed near the loading terminals for the trains, bringing more public art into the space.
“We want to activate the building so it's not just a train station but a community destination,” Miklus says. “Having those additional sources of revenue generated from having more activity inside and near the station could help preserve and maintain Tampa Union Station for generations to come.”
Just as the tour came to an end, an Amtrak train from Miami pulled into the station, unleashing a wave of passengers. The station sits along the “Floridian Line” and gets two trains a day, 365 days a year, that run from Chicago to Washington, D.C. to Tampa to Miami. More than 156,000 Amtrak travelers rode through the station in 2024, a 21% increase from the year prior, says Miklus.
Tampa is also Amtrak's most popular long distance rail service in Florida, despite only having two trains. The No. 2 service is Orlando, which boasts four passenger trains.
Although there are only two running trains at the station now, five additional terminals original to the building sit vacant.
“This station was built to handle many, many trains, including a rail that passes through on the way to the Port of Tampa,” Miklus says. “It could very easily support additional Amtrak service, passenger service like Sun Rail and it could even support Brightline should they get it down here. There’s really so much potential for the future."
