Metro Rails Allen-Medical Campus Station, soon to be integrated into the new University at Buffalo Medical School, will be closed for about a month, tentatively beginning Feb. 16 as construction proceeds on the new $375 million complex.

Thomas George, director of public transit for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, said planners decided to close one of the Buffalo subways busiest stations for an extended period rather than on an occasional basis to ensure the safety of commuters while heavy equipment erects structural steel and major construction continues.

The biggest reason for this is personal safety, he said. As theyre putting up structural steel, we just wont have the ability to have passengers in there.

And rather than closing it on and off during the spring, we said lets just get it done all in one period, he added. Were much happier moving in this direction.

In the meantime, George said, shuttle buses sponsored by UB as part of the project will transport the Medical Campus workers using the subway from Summer-Best Station, just north of the closed facility. Buses will pick up passengers arriving on Metro Rail trains at Summer-Best and take them throughout the Medical Campus, he said, as well as passengers boarding outside the shuttered Allen-Medical Campus Station.

Trains will continue to operate through Allen-Medical Campus, George said, but nobody will be able to enter or exit.

Already, much of the old subway station has been demolished to make way for its inclusion into the ground floor of the new medical school, resembling similar stations integrated into large buildings like those in New York City or Washington. While the below-ground boarding platforms at Allen-Medical Campus will be largely unaffected, the above-ground section will be drastically altered as it serves as the first floor of the new seven-floor medical school.

The station serves about 2,700 passengers daily, but Medical Campus officials project that ridership will grow significantly as employment there grows to levels approaching 20,000. New housing also has been sprouting around Metro Rail stations, with city officials attributing much of that growth to Medical Campus workers seeking a true urban lifestyle that does not require cars.

The new station also will feature a concession area a first for the Metro Rail system that George envisions as a grab and go food service and newsstand or possibly something more elaborate.

Once we issue a request for proposals, well see who wants to have a presence there, he said.

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Allen-Medical Campus rail station to be closed for a month