Proposed South Shore Line station in South Bend

The South Bend Chocolate Company proposed locating the station near tourist attractions it was planning to construct.

After the study, both Buttigieg and NICTD president Michael Noland both agreed that the only two sites worth further consideration for a new station were the west side of the airport and downtown South Bend.

[1] The station's location on the east side of the airport was chosen due to the existence of a freight spur at that site, but this alignment was originally intended to be only temporary.

[12] At the time of the publication of its May 2014 executive summary, the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), the agency which runs the South Shore Line, estimated that this would cost $15 million.

[8] These initial plans to relocate the station to the airport's west side faced local opposition from residents of the Ardmore neighborhood of South Bend after it was proposed that the new tracks approaching a station there would travel through the neighborhood (in the area between Oak Road and Lexington Avenue) and displace as many as forty households there.

[13][14] In 2017, South Bend's redevelopment commission voted to spend $25 million in tax increment financing funds to build a new station.

One was to instead build a new station on parking lots at Westmoor Street west of Bendix Drive (along existing South Shore Line tracks), located on property owned by the Honeywell Corporation.

[15] In September 2017, the South Bend Common Council unanimously passed a resolution urging that as many homes in Ardmore as possible be spared from being demolished by the proposed relocation project.

[2] In December 2017, the South Bend Chocolate Company publicly discussed the possibility of building a station at the location of their planned new factory and tourist destination.

[15] In addition to this, the company was giving open consideration to building other attractions on the site, including a hotel, a winery, a restaurant, a bison farm, and hiking trails.

[7][18] This marked a change from Buttigieg's past support for plans to relocate the station to the west side of the airport.

[11][16] Mike Noland, the president of NICTD expressed his belief that the west side of the airport was more easily attainable in the short-term than a downtown station.

[23][24] While Buttigieg pushed for the community to look into the potential for a downtown station, he also conceded that it might ultimately prove to be too expensive of a project.

[13] The five locations being explored are the aforementioned west airport relocation, downtown station, and Honeywell Corporation sites, the site in the southwest quadrant of the U.S. 20 and U.S. 31 interchange that the South Bend Chocolate Factory tourist destination was planned for, and the existing South Bend Amtrak station.

[11] The study showed that rerouting South Shore Line trains into the city's downtown would require numerous properties to be acquired, the city's Amtrak station to be relocated, two structures at a public housing complex to be demolished, and a soccer field at the Salvation Army Kroc Center to be demolished.

[23][24] The study estimated that a downtown station would generate a $430 million economic impact and create 7,770 new jobs in a ten-year period.

[11][24][14] As of March 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration had not given permission for the routing of tracks and overhead catenary through a protected area near South Bend International Airport's runway.

However, this could cost more than $50 million, and South Bend mayor James Mueller (Buttigieg's successor) has remained tepid towards contributing funding to a new station on the west side of the airport without first hearing a persuasive case that a freight complex there would have strong economic benefit.

[28] There has been speculation as to whether Buttigieg, now United States secretary of transportation, would be hesitant to make federal funding available to the project out of fear of the appearance of favoritism to his hometown.

[30] On August 1, 2022, NICTD's board of trustees voted to issue a request for proposals to move the station to the west side of the airport.

[31] NICTD's president has claimed that the project would neither interfere with potential freight operations at the airport nor the possibility of adding a station in downtown South Bend.

[34]As of late 2022, plans for the west airport relocation had construction beginning as early as the fall or winter of 2024 dependent on the ability to secure federal funding.

[16] To construct trackage to the planned new west airport station, NICTD is expected to need to acquire land currently occupied by approximately ten houses in South Bend's Ardmore neighborhood.