State/Lake L station closing until 2029 for $444M rebuild

One of the Loop’s oldest and busiest elevated stations is about to be out of commission for three years.

The CTA State/Lake station is set to close Jan. 5 for demolition, city officials announced Thursday. The $444-million reconstruction project won’t be completed until sometime in 2029.

Trains will bypass the station for the duration of the work. The station, built in 1895, serves the Brown, Green, Orange, Pink and Purple lines. The adjacent Red Line subway station at Lake Street won’t be affected.

The planned station will feature platforms that are twice as wide, elevators for full ADA accessibility and a massive glass canopy.

The Chicago Department of Transportation, which is leading the project, unveiled the station’s design in 2021. At the time, the city pegged the total cost at $180 million. But the price tag has since ballooned to $444 million.

The city has been working on the project for some time. In 2017, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration announced a $56 million federal grant to fund a new station. Back then, the city estimated the project would cost more than $75 million, then the price of the Washington/Wabash station rebuild. The city finally inked a $444 million construction contract last January with builder F.H. Paschen.

For comparison, the 95th/Dan Ryan Red Line terminal rebuild completed in 2019 cost $290 million. The Green Line Damen station, which opened last year, cost $80 million. The CTA’s planned Red Line Extension, with four planned stations down to 130th Street, has a price tag of $5.7 billion. The federal government is reviewing nearly $2 billion in federal grants tied to the project.

Demolition will affect traffic around State and Lake.

Several commuters who spoke with the Sun-Times at State/Lake Thursday during the evening rush hour said they have heard of the news, but most said they hadn’t and it caught them by surprise.

Mary Casperson, who said she works across the street from the State/Lake, was waiting for the Orange Line toward Midway Airport.

“It kind of sucks,” Casperson said of the station’s closing, which she heard earlier today. “The next station is not the safest.”

But she said the platform could use some renovation, tapping a foot on the wooden planks that shook as her train pulled into the station.

Lake Street will be closed to vehicle traffic intermittently starting Dec. 8 to prepare the site for demolition, the city said. Once the station closes, Lake Street will be limited to local traffic between Dearborn Street and Wabash Avenue.

Traffic lanes will also shift on State Street.

The existing southbound closure of State Street will be extended from Wacker Drive to Washington Street. Northbound State Street will have its lanes reopened to alleviate congestion issues.

Sidewalks on Lake Street and State Street will remain open to pedestrians, officials said.

The station is currently the city’s fifth busiest. More than 8,400 people tapped into the State/Lake station on average each weekday in September, according to CTA data. The Red Line Lake Street subway was the city’s busiest (with 11,400 average weekday entries), followed by Clark/Lake (10,600), Blue Line O’Hare (10,200), and the Red/Brown/Purple Line Fullerton stop (10,100).

For more information about the project and to sign up for updates, visit www.statelakestation.org.