The economic downturn has brought unexpected benefits to Elizabethtown Borough.

An ambitious improvement project that would create a second downtown around the borough's deteriorating train station is in line for an $8 million boost from Washington, D.C.

The federal plan to stimulate the economy has been looking for "shovel-ready" projects in need of funds, David Royer, the county's chief transportation planner, said Monday. But projects that are ready to move with so little lead time are surprisingly hard to find.

The plan for the Elizabethtown train station — a heavily used platform above a dilapidated and shuttered station house — is poised to roll. The revitalization project, which has been in the works for more than a decade, is seemingly weeks away from receiving all the approvals it needs.

It lacks only funding. But that could change today, if Gov. Ed Rendell signs a package of stimulus funding recommendations that includes $8 million for the Elizabethtown station.

The state Department of Transportation, a longtime supporter of the Elizabethtown plan, supported the recommendation.

And the Transportation Technical Advisory Committee to Lancaster County Planning Commission on Monday announced the local rail-improvement project has been added to its Transportation Improvement Program for 2009.

"It's a wonderful day for Elizabethtown and the greater Elizabethtown area to be able to announce that we have the funding in place for this project, which we've been working on steadily since 1996," borough manager Peter Whipple said Monday, just hours after TTAC's announcement.

The $8 million, combined with various state and local grants gathered over the past several years, will cover the cost of the project, Whipple said.

That includes rehabilitation of the stone station house, which was built in 1915 and has been boarded up for at least three decades.

Borough officials have high hopes that the structure will become a hub for transit and commercial activities.

The project also includes raising and extending the station platforms, adding elevators to the site and improving the parking lot and grounds.

"The entire project is going to be covered," Whipple said.

Whipple said final comments on the project from both Amtrak and PennDOT are expected within the next few weeks. The Federal Transit Administration and Federal Railroad Administration have signed off on the plan.

"There is a lot of work going on concurrently," Whipple said. "The project needs to be shovel-ready by June 29. That's when we need to be ready to go out for a bid. But there is still a lot of work, from both an engineering and an administrative standpoint, to be accomplished between now and then."

That includes making final revisions to the plan, amending reimbursement agreements based on the stimulus grant and acquiring construction easements from Amtrak.

"There is going to be a flurry of activity here in the next 60 days in order to ensure that we are ready to meet the shovel-ready nature of the stimulus package," Whipple said.

Whipple said the federal stimulus program "fell into place nicely with our particular project. It provided an impetus for various agencies, ourselves included, to get the project ready for bids in a very short amount of time."

If all goes smoothly, he said, the first shovel could hit the ground by the end of summer, and the new transit facility would be open for business by fall 2010.

"All this has happened very quickly," Royer said.

"The timing is perfect" for the Elizabethtown station, he said.

"It's just about through the design process, but we really hadn't identified funding for construction. It was a case of being at the right place at the right time."

E-mail: tknapp@lnpnews.com