In 1906 the architectural firm of Reed and Stem was selected to design a new station more befitting Tacoma's image as a prosperous, thriving metropolis and railway terminus of the Northwest.

The Tacoma Daily Ledger praised it as "the largest, the most modern and in all ways the most beautiful and best equipped passenger station in the Pacific Northwest".

Railway ridership peaked in the 1930s and again during World War II, then quickly declined as the automobile became America's preferred mode of transportation.

The demolition was opposed by a group called Tacoma Spur Alternatives, which filed a lawsuit to halt the project that it later dropped.

[11] The station building remained in the ownership of the Glacier Park Company, a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Railroad, which received inquires from department store retailers and WED Enterprises, which proposed an entertainment district centered around the depot.

At the same time, Union Station was under construction, they collaborated with two other architects to design the Beaux-Arts style Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

The exterior of the reinforced-concrete building is faced with multicolored red brick set in a Flemish-bond pattern, with a limestone base and ornamental detail.

Shortly after the building's completion in 1911, the dome's skylight began to leak, causing serious problems during the heavy rains regularly experienced in the Northwest.

At that time, 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of new copper were brought in to recover the dome; holes in its plaster interior, as large as eight square feet (0.74 m2) in size, were painstakingly repaired, and the skylight was reopened.

The rotunda also retains historically significant features, including a large clock, marble water fountains, and wooden benches.

[3] Other features of the original design were a pneumatic tube system and elevators installed between the rotunda and the baggage room so that a traveler's luggage would be delivered to the lobby via early 20th century automation.