Union Station — the carrier hotel

1979 – TODAY

The station's second life: Union Station closed to trains in 1971; the railroad record of the building stands in this build's Trains section. Its second life began when Kevin M. Smith bought it — in 1979 on the station's standard account, in 1981 on the account of ChoiceLight, the fiber company that later worked from it, which quotes Smith himself; the two years stand as their sources give them. What Smith built there is consistent across the accounts: in 2003 he founded Global Access Point, the data-center company, and over the following years invested nearly $16 million turning the station into a carrier hotel — 93,000 square feet of data center on Global Access Point's own specification — seated on the one asset no new building could buy: the railroad's right of way, and the transcontinental fiber-optic system that follows it between Chicago and the East Coast. The station offers access to more than twenty carriers, and the trade account of its 2017 partnership with Neutral Path Communications called it one of the largest data centers in the region and a "top 40 carrier hotel nationally"; ChoiceLight's account calls it one of only two carrier hotels in Indiana, the other at Indianapolis. It is the physical node of this whole section: the Metronet's dark fiber and the region's networks join the national system here, in a Beaux-Arts station built for trains.

The 2024 turn: In July 2024 the South Bend Redevelopment Commission acquired Union Station itself for $2.4 million, on the station's standard account of the commission's action; in September 2024 the data-center operation passed to new owners — fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty, with Harrison Street, on the buyers' own announcement of 12 September 2024. The building's third century of use thus opens with its second life secured under specialist ownership and its shell in public hands, while the question of passenger trains returning to it — a federal planning grant toward Amtrak service reached the record in 2026 — belongs to the Trains section's telling.

Sources:

1. Union Station (South Bend), standard station record — the 1979 purchase by Kevin M. Smith on that account; the July 2024 Redevelopment Commission acquisition for $2.4 million; the September 2024 sale of the data-center component.
2. ChoiceLight, Inc. — Smith's purchase dated 1981 on the company's account, quoting him; Global Access Point founded 2003; Union Station as one of Indiana's two carrier hotels.
3. Global Access Point — the data center's own specification: 93,000 square feet; the nearly $16 million invested.
4. Neutral Path Communications, release of 25 September 2017 — access to more than twenty carriers; "one of the largest in the region… a top 40 carrier hotel nationally."
5. fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty / Harrison Street, release of 12 September 2024 — the acquisition of the Union Station data center.