Passenger Trains > South Shore Station - Michigan City Indiana

The restored facade is up and the scaffolding is down at the Michigan City 11th St South Shore Station.
Work is continuing behind the facade on the new station and parking structure.

1) The restored facade ... relocated a few feet east to the end of the new high level platforms and raised to place the base of the building at platform level
2) The view from Franklin St (west of the station)
3) The view from the south platform

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4) A view from the platform looking west. A slope will be built on this side of the station building down to street level.
5) A closer view of the station building. Windows and doors yet to be installed.
6) A view of the top of the facade showing the restored details.

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7) The circle at the top of the facade. The lights are LED with a historic style.
8) Additional lights will be added lower on the facade.
9) Meet the neighbors. A 12 story condo complex with retail on the 11th St and Franklin corner. Construction has reached the 4th floor.

The garage should open when the station building is ready for occupancy and the sidewalks and approach paving is completed.

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That's pretty amazing!  That might just garner an architectural award for that person who repurposed the original facade.

Thank  you.  Someone  finally  made  this  project clear.. Wanna  live  at  a  train station?? I bet  many  do

Very cool indeed.  Thank you

The restoration of the facade is wonderful. I remember the station as a drab, grubby place. It's amazing how the cleaning brought out the architectural beauty.
And yes, I imagine that there are people who would like to live in the building. Imagine just going downstairs to catch a train to Chicago.

Thanks for posting.  I wish the architects of the new building had designed it so that it better complemented the facade.  But still, it's a story with a happy ending.

Do you have any data on current South Shore ridership?  Is it anywhere close to pre-pandemic levels?

My Dad and I got off the train at this station in 1983. It had that old train station smell, hope that smell stays away.

Amazing that you would post these images. I was just there this past Saturday, and photographed the same structures, and almost the same views. And I would have posted the images earlier this morning, except that my SD card reader crapped out on me, and I had no way to get the images from the card to the computer. Quite the coincidence. Thanks for posting your images.

You did a fine job in showing the new construction. It really is quite impressive, and will be a real addition to Michigan City and to the area. And it is much larger than some of the proposals and renderings that were previously posted publicly, including here on TO.

In viewing it a few days ago on Saturday, I found myself wondering if the facade that's incorporated into the parking garage is the former station's actual facade, or a re-creation with new materials. Studying it as carefully as I could from a distance, I became convinced that it is a reconstruction of the old facade that had been stripped from the former station building before demolition, and not a re-creation with new materials. Although I think it may have had some height added to it at the base to better fit in with the overall design of the parking garage in which it is set. Which if true works fine.

There are photos of that earlier station's demolition process, and earlier renderings of the new structure in an earlier iteration here on TO: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5413099

This is the kind of transit-oriented development that can really add to our cities, and help to maintain a traffic base for passenger rail that then helps everyone, including those who aren't regular users and live a distance away. It will be really interesting to see these structures completed in the months ahead.

MC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/25 11:02 by ironmtn.

cutboy1958 Wrote:
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> Thank  you.  Someone  finally  made  this
>  project clear.. Wanna  live  at  a  train
> station?? I bet  many  do

If the rent is reasonable they WILL get tenants!

calumet Wrote:
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> Do you have any data on current South Shore ridership?  Is it anywhere close to pre-pandemic levels?

2024 ended up at 53.95% of 2019 ridership. The first four months busing was still in effect.
For comparison, all of Metra ended up with 2024 reflecting 56% of 2019 ridership.
(Source: Unlinked trip statistics reported to the FRA.)

ironmtn Wrote:
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> I became convinced that it is a reconstruction of the old facade that had been stripped
> from the former station building before demolition, and not a re-creation with new materials.

You are correct. The old facade was carefully removed and restored while in storage.

> Although I think it may have had some height added to it at the base to better fit in with
> the overall design of the parking garage in which it is set. Which if true works fine.

The facade has been shifted to the east from the original position (to align the entrance door with the end of the platform), a few feet to the north away from the center of the street (since the double track platform takes up more space) and the base of the facade is also at platform height instead of ground level.

> There are photos of that earlier station's demolition process, and earlier renderings of the
> new structure in an earlier iteration here on TO:
> https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5413099

The parking structure grew in size from that original proposal. NICTD set aside enough money to build what the original renderings show. The condo developer took that money and added their own to build a parking structure with more floors on a smaller footprint with additional parking for the condo residents.

A rendering of the completed look can be found on the developer's website.
https://thefranklinmc.com/

Thanks for all of that information. An impressive development.

MC

justalurker66 Wrote:
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> The restored facade is up and the scaffolding is
> down at the Michigan City 11th St South Shore
> Station.
> Work is continuing behind the facade on the new
> station and parking structure.
>
> 1) The restored facade ... relocated a few feet
> east to the end of the new high level platforms
> and raised to place the base of the building at
> platform level
> 2) The view from Franklin St (west of the
> station)
> 3) The view from the south platform

Ya just convinced me to take a ride to Mich City soon! Thanks.

Posted from iPhone

Remarkable. Nice link to the past.