Mayor Bill Haslam, U.S. Representative John Duncan Jr. and other officials celebrated the long-awaited groundbreaking ceremony for the new Knoxville Station Transit Center Monday morning.

The facility is being developed by the Public Building Authority on the corner of Church Avenue and Hall of Fame Drive.

Construction on the James White Parkway is slated to begin this week.

The 108,000-square-foot center will feature a bus platform that will extend across the James White Parkway and will be the heart of what is expected to be a growing Knoxville Area Transit system in the coming years.

KAT currently carries about 3.6 million riders annually and the new station will be a great improvement over the existing situation, which features a main transfer station outside in front of the City County Building on Main Street.

The new transit center has been in the planning stages for several years but difficulties in finding, and then securing, the right location have delayed it from becoming a reality.

The $29 million building is being developed with a mix of mostly Federal Transit Authority money with additional funding from the City of Knoxville and TDOT.

Congressman Duncan was the driving force in obtaining more than $20 million in federal funding for the project.

Other speakers at the ceremony included Bill Lyons, senior director of the city’s Department of Policy & Communications; Don Sproles, chairman of the Knoxville Transportation Authority; Paula J. Shaw, director of Program Operations for TDOT; and Cindy McGinnis, executive director of Knoxville Area Transit.

The new center will include a covered loading area, a lobby where riders can wait in warmth or air conditioning, depending on the season and watch a system that informs them where the bus they are waiting on is at that particular moment.

It will house some of KAT’s administrative offices including customer service.

The building will be LEED-certified meaning that it will use less energy and be constructed with sustainable building practices.

Both Mayor Haslam and Representative Duncan referred to the new center as being a good example of what can happen when agencies, in this case the federal, state and city governments, work together and leverage their resources to create a good result.