'Union Station was a very interesting project. We had no idea that the work would be shelved and not put out into the public realm. The whole thing seemed crazy to us.'

Dan Wood, partner, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), New York

I went to Union Station the other night without any intention of catching a train -- but to walk past the taxi drivers trolling for fares on Front Street and slip between the towering columns of the sweeping colonnade. It seemed the right place to be -- inside a time warp of Tennessee marble and Zumbro stone -- to consider the ugly cowardice that has demolished the city's process to redevelop Union Station.

This, you recall, is the deal in which the City of Toronto cavorts as a banana republic desperate for private investment dollars, and prepares to lease the country's most lived-in living room to a local consortium called Union Pearson Group. Bizarrely, the entire deal has been negotiated in rooms sealed off from the public. A lease is about to be handed to Union Pearson to redevelop Canada's beaux-arts jewel. The city won't return my phone calls -- neither will O&Y Properties, the lead proponent of the winning team.

In Europe, all public work must go through open, architectural competition. For Union Station, the city has masterminded a process that will hand to a private developer the keys to a publicly owned icon, where 120,000 people travel on an average working day, over a number that is expected to double over the next 20 years. That's a pretty scenario for any developer. But you'd think the city was giving away its excess garbage. Longing for a public forum about the meaning of a train station redevelopment? An open design forum to engage the conceptual priorities of Toronto's citizens? Both kinds of events should have happened one year ago. Desperate to see the urban and architecture images produced by the competing teams for the Union Station bid? You're not alone. A public exhibition of the work needs to happen immediately.

Dan Wood of Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), one of the world's most sought-after urban-vision firms led by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, is still swirling from the secrecy of the process. It produced a book -- boldly designed and logically argued -- for LP Heritage + Union Station Consortium. That consortium is the only other competitor.

In the book Re:Union Toronto,OMA concludes that the urbanscape around Union Station is often bleak and "barren." There is "funnelling" and "congestion" of commuters. There is "confusion," a sense of the "labyrinth" and the Great Hall is often "vacant."

In response to the clutter of train tracks lying south of the station, OMA proposes two options. The cheaper version allows for easier public access to train platforms and space for the addition of two air shuttle tracks. Then, there is a cleaner version: For a cost that is 25-per-cent more, Wood explains from his office in New York, the existing tracks would be buried.

OMA worked out the feasibility of this concept with the ARUP Engineers of London after studying (and consulting on) hugely complex redevelopments of train stations around the world. With the tracks buried in a vast underground concourse, OMA recommends, new public space would be created with opportunities to better connect Union Station to the waterfront. There's space to build a new neighbourhood of towers next to the station.

Compared with other train station redevelopments, the city's brief for Union Station is fairly workaday. Consider, for instance, what was accomplished to transform the working class backwater of Lille, France, into Eurolille in merely four years. OMA worked on the masterplan and designed the city's new convention centre. Wood explains the brief: "100 million square feet of development, $1-billion (U.S.) for construction, moving a highway, creating 3,000 new parking spaces, rerouting existing train and subway tracks, building three high rises over the existing train tracks with elevators going directly to the train station . . . two big civic plazas and the Congrexpo convention centre" (which was designed by OMA).

Besides Koolhaas and his colleagues, LP Heritage + Union Station Consortium had another ace in its back pocket: Beyer Blinder Belle architects, the New York firm responsible for remarkable restoration of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal.

This was meant to be the unbeatable team. Its proposal for an undulating glass canopy that runs the length of Union Station's moats helps to gracefully invigorate the stripped classical-revival façade. Its interior restoration speaks volumes of the elegant restraint that returned Grand Central to its former glory. The proposed access to trains is generous and uncluttered -- even the signage and use of projection on the concourse ceiling looks beguiling to a visitor.

What happened? The other contender, a local consortium called Union Pearson, won the bid. The public is not allowed to know why. Led by O&Y Properties, OMERS Realty and Toronto architects Zeidler Grinnell Partnership, along with Chicago architect Helmuth Jahn for possible build out of the site, the winning consortium is rumoured to have provided a financial edge over its competitor.

But judging from the team's architectural proposals, the vision is clunky and ordinary -- its glass canopy over the station's east moat dips strangely against the existing wall, leaving a dangerous chasm open to passersby. The team's Photoshopped image of a proposed food court offers nothing in the way of architectural innovation or delight -- and the restaurant tables are curiously crowded around the bottom of the escalators. This is dreary, bottom-line design and it has no place in the beloved Union Station.

My last column on Union Station, about the city's exquisite bungling of the redevelopment process, unleashed a torrent of e-mails from intelligent, concerned, regular citizens from Toronto and beyond. The letters were filled with outrage, accusations and cynicism. "I'm tired of the Mayor's shenanigans," wrote one woman. "He must not get away with his secret cabals. What further can I do? Can we take to the streets?"

Certainly, Madame, this is your prerogative. Former Toronto mayor John Sewell has called a public meeting for Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Trinity -- next to Eaton Centre. Speakers include writer Anne Michaels, local councillor David Miller, architect Jack Diamond, architectural historian Douglas Richardson of the University of Toronto and heritage activists Steve Otto and Catherine Nasmith.

This is an excellent panel but it's incomplete. Missing are the people who can provide answers to the burning questions we all have in our minds.
lrochon@globeandmail.ca