Renovations to the Elizabethtown railroad station and platform are well under way.
Now, borough officials are ready to start looking at options for using the new commercial space they've created there.
"I think it's time to open the dialogue," councilman Meade Bierly said Thursday. "The reality is coming very, very quickly."
The $9.3-million project, more than a dozen years in the planning, is expected to be completed in late winter or early spring of next year. Construction began last August.
Improvements to the heavily used rail site include new Americans with Disabilites Act-compliant elevators and stairways, enhanced lighting, the addition of a paved parking lot and construction of a bus shelter.
The platforms will be raised and lengthened, from 220 feet to 500 feet on both sides of the tracks, and new canopies will be built to provide shelter for passengers while they wait.
A centerpiece of the project is refurbishment of the station building, which opened in 1917 but has sat dormant since it closed in 1979.
Borough officials have long harbored a desire to fill the small stone building with a variety of transit and commercial interests, which they hope will spark a new economic boom in that part of town.
"I don't think it's premature to start talking among ourselves and soliciting suggestions from the public," Bierly told council. "It's time to kick things up a notch."
Options previously discussed by council include a coffee shop, restaurant, newsstand or market, although no businesses have signed up to lease the space.
"We don't have any specific plans to date," borough manager Roni Ryan said Tuesday.
"We're putting together a request for proposals outlining what we're looking for."
Besides a few necessary functions — a ticket kiosk, restrooms, waiting and baggage areas — the building is wide open for commercial uses, Ryan said.
The building could be open for business in early 2011, she said.
"We're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel."
The property is owned by Amtrak, although the borough signed a 99-year, $1 lease on the building and grounds, minus the pedestrian tunnel and platform, in 1996.
"We're going to have a jewel there," Bierly said. "We need to find a way to keep it polished."
The station is used by about 90,000 commuters per year.