T Line Breaks Ground On Transit Station

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T-Line turns dirt for $1.4 million hub

By: Greg Bischof - Texarkana Gazette - Published: 02/19/2010

Staff photo by Eric J. Shelton Texas-side City Council Member Derrick McGary, left, Marketing and Communications Manager Vicki Melde and Texarkana, Ark., Mayor Horace Shipp review photographs after the groundbreaking ceremony held Thursday morning for the Texarkana Urban Transit District’s new administration building in Texarkana, Texas. The first shovels of dirt flew Thursday, inaugurating construction of the new Texarkana Urban Transit District administration building.

The $1.4 million building at West 14th Street and Texas Boulevard will beThe first shovels of dirtcome the hub for district’s eight-route municipal bus service that has served residents in four local cities for almost 10 years.

“This groundbreaking marks a new era of customer service,” said T-Line General Manager Vera Matthews as she opened the ceremony.

The 6,000-square-foot building will have a 1950s-style cinematic T-Line marquee and will house large and small conference rooms, a reception area, three T-Line offices and three Texarkana Metropolitan Planning Organization offices, according the building’s floor plan.

The four cities served are the Twin Cities, Wake Village and Nash.

“Judging from these renderings, the building promises to be a pretty nice one once it’s built and in use,” said Arkansas-side City Manager Harold Boldt as he pointed to colored architectural drawings of the building’s exterior. “Most of the $1.4 million came from federal funds.”

T-Line officials believe the new building will be finished by next February, depending on weather conditions.

T-Line’s current administrative office in the 800 block of Elm Street provides less than half of what the new building will provide in square footage.

The new building site covers 1 1/2 to 2 acres, which will provide parking space for all eight buses.

Texas-side City Manager Larry Sullivan said one of the best advantages the new building will provide to customers is its new, more centralized location.

“One of the real beauties in this will be the reduced route time for customers by about 50 percent,” Sullivan said. “One thing that indicates the quality of our cities is the way we treat our residents in helping them get around.”

Nash Mayor Henry Slaton, who also chairs the district’s Board of Directors, agreed.

“I worked for 34 years for the DPS (Texas Department of Public Safety) and one thing I found out was you can’t accomplish anything if you don’t work together on good projects like this one,” he said.