MI: Is Potter Street Station still on track to return as a Saginaw transit hub? It’s complicated.

Budget woes, exited partners and a potentially awkward dynamic between agencies haven’t derailed plans for Saginaw’s taxpayer-funded transit system operations to move into a defunct, 19th-century-built train depot, officials said.

But those plans appear to be stuck in neutral for now.

In October, Saginaw Transit Authority and Regional Services (STARS) officials announced a $1.2 million “unforeseen deficit” in its $11 million annual budget. STARS leaders said the deficit amounted to the transit authority spending money from federal funding for expenditures that were supposed to be covered by a different part of the agency’s coffers.

The news coincided with Glenn Steffens resigning as the executive director days after the STARS Board of Directors cast a no-confidence vote in him over the budget issue.

Before his resignation, Steffens spent years championing moving the transit system’s central operations into the Potter Street Station, about a half-mile north of the agency’s downtown HQ. The STARS board in June 2023 voted unanimously to pursue the project, but the move remained far from a certainty. Officials said the organization first would need to raise funds to support the estimated $100 million in costs to repair the 144-year-old ex-train depot and add transit-friendly infrastructure in the surrounding northside neighborhood.

Still, at the time, the future seemed brighter in part because of a series of federal grants that helped update an aging fleet of buses, taking a big burden off the STARS budget. A $411,500 STARS feasibility study also added to hopes for a Potter Street Station revival after engineers stated the building’s structural integrity was in better shape than they feared.

The move across town seemed inevitable enough that STARS in 2023 hosted a press conference outside the old train station.

“It’s tentative, but man, I’m ready to bet the farm on it,” Steffens said of the plans at the time.

Bend in the tracks

But the momentum of those plans have since slowed to a crawl. Reduced funding from government agencies in recent years as well as the budget misstep revealed in October contributed to the momentum shift, said Jamie Forbes, director of external affairs for STARS.

Still, she remains hopeful STARS one day could move operations into the old train depot.

“We still are looking to the future and possible expansion,” Forbes said.

The plot seemingly thickened when Steffens — weeks after his professional breakup with STARS — announced his new role as president of the Saginaw Depot Preservation Society, the nonprofit group that owns and manages Potter Street Station.

The switcheroo means, if STARS leaders one day raise $100 million to repurpose Potter Street Station, the ownership negotiations could involve them sitting down with the ex-executive director they once expressed a lack of confidence in.

Could that make for an awkward dynamic?

Officials on both sides of that potential negotiating table say, “No.”

“The passion (Steffens) showed for Potter Street during his time here at STARS, transferring now to his leadership within the organization that’s advocating for this very special building, makes total sense,” Forbes said. “I don’t see it being a limitation at all in our future.”

Steffens said he “put his heart and soul” into his work at STARS, which included its efforts to move the transit service into the old train depot.

“I certainly didn’t do all that work to build it up just to hope it will fail or to stand in its way,” Steffens said. “I’m a city resident, just like most people who work there and who use that service, and having been the director (of STARS), I recognize wholeheartedly how important their success is to the city.”

Now in his job leading the nonprofit that owns the old train depot — a volunteer role that offers no salary — Steffens said his focus is on strategic planning and patching up the station’s deteriorated structure. The nonprofit rallied volunteers last year to begin fixing a roof that officials at one time estimated could cost contractors $100,000 to repair, Steffens said. Going the volunteer route instead, repairs costs $3,000 in donations, he said.

Tapped resources

Another factor that could slow or derail funds STARS officials hoped to capture: The loss of one of the agency’s top champions in Washington, D.C.

Dan Kildee, the Flint Township Democrat who did not seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives last year, more than once included big-budget STARS funding projects in federal omnibus spending bills.

As recently as last January, the transit authority added nine new buses to its fleet, thanks in part to $4 million Kildee proposed and helped secure for STARS in the federal budget. Kildee in recent years was present at several press conferences spotlighting STARS initiatives, including the event hosted at Potter Street Station.

Voters in November elected Bay City Democrat Kristin McDonald Rivet to represent Kildee’s former Congressional district, which includes Saginaw. Rivet took her oath of office earlier this month, and it remains unclear if the freshman Congresswoman will pursue STARS funding with the same consistency as her predecessor.

STARS officials are hopeful she will champion their causes.

“She has brought up an interest in regional transportation,” Forbes said of Rivet’s early communications with STARS leaders. “We’ve had great conversations about the challenges we face, and she’s been very receptive to those. We look forward to continuing that relationship.”

Steffens’ successor as the STARS executive director, Amy Bidwell, and the group’s board of directors for now continue to navigate the agency’s budget challenges without any new funding sources on the horizon.

Forbes said officials with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) — the U.S. Department of Transportation agency that administered some of the transit organization’s big-budget projects in recent years — continue to work with STARS leaders to review the missteps that led to last year’s $1.2 million budget blunder.

“We just want to make sure that we have the best possible information as we look to the future of locating our resources as best we can,” Forbes said.

She said STARS officials do not expect to receive new federal grants at least until that review is complete. She did not want to speculate on the timeline for the review.

STARS receives its budget funding from several sources, including a 3.2-mill Saginaw tax that voters last August renewed through 2030. Residents first approved a citywide tax to support the transit system in 1995.

Another source of STARS money remains the state, which cut funding for transit authorities across Michigan this year. Forbes said STARS this fiscal year experienced a 15% decrease in state funding, which amounted to a $444,000 reduction from the $3 million the state provided in 2023.

“We are really eager to advocate at the state level for better funding,” Forbes said. “We are fortunate to have local elected officials that are very supportive of public transit and very aware of the challenges we face.”

She said the agency so far has navigated budget woes without significantly altering the services delivered by the agency’s fleet of 80 vehicles, which provide an average of 41,000 rides each month.

Forbes said officials have removed several of the oldest vehicles from operations, which reduced maintenance costs. The agency also eliminated rides that began at 5 a.m., instead launching daily routes at 6 a.m. And the transit authority has cut costs by not hiring replacements for several staff vacancies, she said.

STARS employs 115 people today, she said.

The path that led here

Officials with STARS said space constraints at their downtown Saginaw headquarters were among the reasons they sought a potential new site for operations.

When Potter Street Station emerged as a frontrunner in that search, STARS officials said the old train depot could provide additional office and parking space, a new transfer plaza, a vehicle maintenance facility, and retail shops.

The estimated $100 million price tag included planned improvements to the depot’s surroundings. Now a largely vacant corner of Saginaw, the northside neighborhood once served as a home to employees of General Motors, before the auto industry declined in the region in the late 20th century.

Potter Street Station was built during an even earlier era of Saginaw history.

Opened in 1881, the depot welcomed passenger trains for 69 years. Its terminal was a destination for Irish immigrants drawn to the region during the lumber boom of the late 19th century, for Asians seeking salt mine jobs about that same time, and for Black people from the South who sought a claim in General Motors’ expansion in the first half of the 1900s.

The last passenger to board a ride there did so in 1950. The 11,500-square-foot facility was mothballed after the last freight train departed there in 1986.

Officials have attempted more than a few times to send the Victorian-era terminal permanently into the history books.

A 1988 Saginaw News headline read, “Glory years gone, Potter depot’s days are numbered.” But advocacy from city leaders and the formation of the nonprofit that now owns the old depot saved the structure from the wrecking ball on more than one occasion over the decades.

In 1996, the National Park Service added the station to the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2022, Potter Street Station received a status belonging to properties covered by the Michigan Local Historic Districts Act of 1970.

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