American-Made Requirement Forces Change To Train Station Renovation Schedule

The City of Sacramento says it has had to re-think the timeline of the $30 million, Sacramento Valley Train Station renovation project. 

Half of the money comes from a federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery or TIGER grant. The City is asking for a federal waiver from the grant's requirement that 100-percent of project materials are made in America. The City says some of the energy-efficient components are not made by any American company.  

Work on the support structure of the train station has been completed.  The City Council has been asked to approve $5 million to complete parts of the project that aren't affected by the waiver.  Jerry Way is Director of Public Works.

"For folks that are traveling through the Sacramento Valley Train Station, they saw scaffolding in that structure that has remained," says Way. "We asked our subsequent contractor to take over that scaffolding because it went directly from the retrofit straight to this renovation project which is going to be the big one."

The renovation work is designed to increase pedestrian, bicycle, and electric vehicle access while also including some beautification measures.

'We got a federal grant for $15 million, coupled with our local money of $15 million to spend about $30 million on the Sacramento Valley Station, to make that thing really unbelievable like it did when it was first built a long, long time ago," says Way.

The groundbreaking for the renovation project is scheduled for September 26.