Within the five grants, the United States Department of Transportation Build America Bureau, and Regional Infrastructure Accelerator (RIA) Program awarded the city $1.15 million dollars to establish JAX FAST, which is an office inside the Public\u2019s Works Department focused on advancing eight infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
One of the eight projects JAX FAST will focus on is relocating the Amtrak station from Clifford Lane on the Westside to Downtown at the Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center in LaVilla. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a really good idea,\u201d Anjelica Bencomo, who lives in Jacksonville, said.<\/p>\n
Bencomo was just getting off of the Amtrak after returning from Baltimore. She said relocating the Amtrak station would be a great idea to help revitalize downtown.<\/p>\n
[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s one more little flagstone to hang our hat on and say \u2018Hey come on down\u2019 and get right into downtown where we\u2019re trying to make everything as a new hub,\u201d Bencomo said.<\/p>\n However, for Peter and Leslie Gerlach, they don\u2019t think moving the Amtrak station downtown will make them take the train more. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d use it more if it went out to the outskirts of Jacksonville,\u201d Leslie Gerlach said. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n We reached out to the city of Jacksonville and asked Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s office how much money from this grant would be allocated to the Amtrak relocation project, and what the money would be used for. <\/p>\n You can read that full statement below:<\/p>\n \u201cThe grants funding the LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project<\/a> and JAX FAST<\/a> are managed and administered by the City of Jacksonville \u2013 and they are for project master planning purposes only. Part of this process is determining the funding that is needed to complete the infrastructure improvements that are needed.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the JAX FAST improvements are near JTA\u2019s Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center (JRTC), which was built across the street specifically because of its proximity to the Prime Osborn Convention Center (and future UF campus site) where the proposed Amtrak platform and train depot would be developed on City-owned property. In addition, while the master plan and projects being evaluated for both grants are centered around the transit and passenger rail facilities, the improvements themselves include a variety of City projects, such as McCoys Creek parks, Beaver Street and Myrtle Avenue Improvements, as a means to foster positive growth around the passenger rail facility. That list of JAX FAST projects is below. We will maintain close coordination with JTA regarding transit-specific aspects of the project.<\/p>\n \u201cThe return of Amtrak passenger rail to Downtown Jacksonville has been a city priority for decades \u2013 JTA made a comprehensive study of it in 2004, for instance \u2013 but the complexity of the issue for all the various stakeholders involved has kept it from moving forward. Mayor Deegan spearheaded the effort to move this initiative forward by bringing together all stakeholders to determine concrete steps that would get trains rolling back at the Prime Osborn in Downtown where they belong. The Deegan Administration took the lead in coordinating these efforts because of the city-owned property that is impacted. And it has already paid off in terms of seeking and winning these grants, building capacity to take on the work, and soon, to develop the master plan and projects for the area. This project syncs with the other JAX FAST projects, and also other interagency projects to finally bring revitalization back to LaVilla and Downtown after too many years of inertia. The initial focus is on bringing Amtrak back, but the hope is certainly to also attract potential commuter rail\/regional rail and potential private rail operators in the future. This will bring in new visitors and increase tourism revenue to the city in addition to opening up new travel options for Jacksonville residents.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been in communication with Amtrak throughout this process since the original stakeholder meeting and grant was received. The design and PD&E phases have not yet commenced, and the overall timeline will be determined as the master plan is developed.\u201d<\/p>\n Projects in the pipeline for LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project and JAX FAST Projects in the pipeline for LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project and JAX FAST <\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The city of Jacksonville is exploring the possibility of moving the Amtrak station from the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":920792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,23003,371688,371695,18570,371693,3188,723,11561,371692,46580,7310,371694,265661,21901,425,30170,371690,371689,27782,67,586,371691,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-920791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-amtrak","tag-amtrak_station","tag-angelica_bencomo","tag-baltimore","tag-clifford_lane","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jack","tag-jack_fast","tag-jacks","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville_regional_transportation_center","tag-la_villa","tag-leslie","tag-local","tag-madison_foglio","tag-maifoglio","tag-na_6_action","tag-peter","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-united_states_department_of_transportation","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116884263874133751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Projects](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/cmg\/VZBZR67KX5BJFFKZ5P25DF77CA.png\")
<\/p>\n