Through 30 years of talk about redeveloping the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal at the foot of Main Street, planners have envisioned a bustling public space and transit hub on a resurrected Buffalo waterfront.

Exactly three years ago, transit planners were forced to scrap grand plans for a skywalk linking the redeveloped Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal to KeyBank Center across South Park Avenue.

Reuse of the DL&W Terminal has been a long time coming. The lower floor serves as Metro Rail's Yard and Shops complex, but the second floor has been vacant since the last Erie-Lackawanna passenger train left the station in 1962.

An Erie Basin Marina that doesn't look like a relic from the 1970s, but one that teems with visitors wandering down an expansive new boardwalk and visiting a new low-rise building with retail shops and maybe even affordable apartments.

The new $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in the House of Representatives Friday night.

Long before the coronavirus pandemic upended much of upstate New York’s economy, the plan to transform the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal into a Metro Rail station and commercial center was slowed by a lack of funding.

Ever since the last intercity passenger train left the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal in 1962, Buffalo seems to have wondered what to do with the cavernous train shed at the foot of Main Street.

Slowly but surely, the community aim of restoring the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal to its former grandeur is beginning to take shape.

Two years after the NFTA awarded Savarino Companies pre-development rights to redevelop the second floor of the DL&W terminal along Buffalo's waterfront, owner Sam Savarino had a vision - to bring life back to this historic landmark.

For 103 years, the hulking Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal has anchored the foot of Main Street, these days as host to the busy yard and shops of Metro Rail.