11th Street station (Indiana)

New platforms at 11th Street as of September 2022

Michigan City and NICTD long discussed the possibility of moving the tracks off the street, onto a less intrusive alignment. A series of studies concluded that the 11th Street alignment is the most viable and cost-effective option, especially in terms of transit-oriented development.[9] There were considerable concerns among Michigan City residents about this plan, particularly those who would have to be relocated. Other possible alignments existed that would also have separated the NICTD tracks from a grade widely used by motor vehicle traffic, and a public hearing was held in September 2011 to discuss these possible alignments.[10] However, the alignment adjacent to 11th Street was chosen, largely due to the potential for surrounding development, with the plans specifying the conversion of 11th Street into a one-way street with the two tracks running adjacent to the street.[8]

As part of the South Shore Line's double tracking project, the station closed on May 1, 2021, for the two and a half-year duration of the project.[11][8] The official date of its closure had only been announced less than three weeks earlier on April 14, 2021.[8] During the closure, service will continue at Michigan City's Carroll Avenue station, which is connected to the area of the 11th Street Station by the Michigan City Transit Route 3 bus.[8] However, train service between Caroll Avenue and Chicago will be discontinued until the Fall of 2022, with rail replacement bus service being used to connect the train service between South Bend Airport and Caroll Avenue with the train service between Chicago and Dune Park.[12]

The 11th Street station is planned to be rebuilt at approximately the same location and include high-level platforms capable of accommodating eight-car trains.[11][8] The redeveloped station was also planned, from the start of the reconstruction work, to include a multi-story parking garage and attached retail facility.[11][13]

In September 2021, the city of Michigan City issued a request for proposal (RFP) for developers interested in building a mixed-use development on the 65,300 square foot (6,070 m²) city block of the planned rebuilt station (the block enveloped by Franklin, Pine, 10th, and 11th streets). In doing so, Michigan City and NICTD indicated their interest in seeing developer construct a mixed-use development that would include intermodal hub featuring 426 parking spaces, a passenger waiting area, and a train stop for the South Shore Line, ideally with the original station building's facade being restored and reinstalled. The RFP specified that the project could be as many as ten floors high and needed to be finished by the expected May 2024 completion of the South Shore Line double track construction. The city committed to providing $16 million in funding to aid in their construction.[14][15][16] On February 23, 2022, it was announced that Michigan City and NICDTD had reached an agreement with Flaherty & Collins Properties for an $80 million mixed-use development. Flaherty & Collins' proposal had been unanimously chosen by a review committee. The development will include, in addition to the new train station, a twelve-story high-rise with 208 luxury residential apartments, more than 10,000 square feet (930 m²) of commercial space, and a parking garage with 558 spaces. The development will incorporate the facade of the original station building. The development is slated to break ground in the summer of 2023, open its transit center by May 2024, and finish construction on its apartments by the spring of 2025.[17][18]

In addition to the new intermodal hub development, since the start of construction on of the double tracking project (expected to lessen the commute between Michigan City and Chicago to roughly an hour, removing roughly 30 minutes from the commute time),[8][14] numerous planned developments have been announced in Michigan City. Many have attributed this directly to the double tracking.[19][18][16][20][21] In November 2021, a developer announced plans for a $35 million mixed-use development featuring 200 apartments on the corner of Eighth Street and Michigan Boulevard, a location near the station.[19][18] In the years before the groundbreaking of the double track project, Michigan City had already been working towards redeveloping its surrounding central Uptown area into an arts district, with faster train service between Michigan City and Chicago being seen as a key generator for the fulfillment that goal.[8] Since the groundbreaking of double track project, a number of major developments have been announced for other parts of the city as well, such as a $150 million mixed-use hotel and apartment development near the city's City Hall.[16] The leader of the Economic Development Corp. Michigan City stated that the group of projects generated by the improved rail service will create 800 new multi-family residential units in Michigan City in a period of a decade.[19][18]