Estimated at a cost of $800.1 million (2017 US dollars) for full implementation of all public and private components, the project will be built in three phases, with Amtrak service tentatively scheduled to start in 2026–2027.

[3] In 1991, the City of Charlotte and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) completed a preliminary feasibility study for a new Uptown rail station to replace the existing Amtrak station, built in 1962 by the Southern Railway and located on North Tryon Street near the rail yard for SOU's successor, Norfolk Southern.

[6][7] Announced publicly in August 2005, the proposed Gateway Station is envisioned to serve as both a multimodal transit center in addition to both office and retail space.

An adjacent, interim bus station was built for Greyhound, which provides connections to routes running to Atlanta, Detroit, Jacksonville, New York City and Philadelphia.

[1] Both the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) and NCDOT have started/completed various projects that impact the future station, including the CityLynx Gold Line and a new Locomotive and Railcar Maintenance Facility located on West Summit Avenue.

[4][18][19] As of late 2024, no physical progress has been made on the site, with city officials confirming that the planning and funding efforts are still ongoing, with no definitive timeline in place.

A second, high-level island platform is located alongside Norfolk Southern's tracks for Amtrak service, which will not be publicly accessible until 2025-27.