The race is on: Brightline seeks proposals for a new railway station on Florida’s Treasure Coast. Which city will get it?

One month after starting its new higher speed rail service from South Florida to Orlando, Brightline launched a competition Thursday to build the railroad’s newest station along Florida’s Treasure Coast.

Will the new stop be in Stuart? Port St. Lucie? Fort Pierce?

The winning location can expect trains to start service along the line’s new extension to Orlando in the first quarter of 2028, management said in a “request for proposal.”

“We’re excited to begin the process of identifying a station location in the Treasure Coast and have seen tremendous support from the local community,” Brightline Chief Executive Officer Michael Reininger said in the statement. “Expanding Brightline into the Treasure Coast region will make Brightline one of the most accessible forms of transportation in Florida, giving access to nearly half of the state’s residents.”

The proposals “may come from private or public land owners that control property along the Brightline/FEC Railway corridor in St. Lucie or Martin counties and meet the qualifications,” the company said.

Brightline said it will initially host “one-on-one meetings” with applicants from both counties in November. Then, management  “will begin evaluations with a goal of entering negotiations with the property owners in the first quarter of 2024.”

It has set a schedule of private proposal meetings for St. Lucie County on Nov. 28, and for Martin County on Nov. 29. The deadline for submitting proposals is Dec. 22, according to the statement.

Brightline currently operates stations in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Aventura and Miami. Its newest station at Orlando International Airport opened on Sept. 22.

Lobbying for a station

After the company started its initial service to West Palm Beach. Fort Lauderdale and Miami five years ago, advocates for other South Florida cities lobbied the railroad hard to locate stations in their towns as commuter and leisure traveler demand for the service took hold in the region. In 2022, Boca Raton in southern Palm Beach County and Aventura in northern Miami-Dade County became the next new stops.

Now, similar efforts and sentiments are emerging along the Treasure Coast, the company says.

“We’ve heard from a number of folks who want a Brightline stop in their community,” said spokesman Ben Porritt. “There is a lot of support and momentum from our Orlando launch.”

Last month, at least one Treasure Coast city, Stuart, left little doubt about where the next station should go as Brightline’s inaugural train to Orlando made its way north from West Palm Beach.

As the train passed through town, local supporters unfurled welcoming banners and a fire truck doused the passenger cars with celebratory streams of water. In Orlando, the Stuart city manager and mayor said they wanted to get Brightline’s attention.

“We’ve always tried to work toward it,” City Manager Michael Mortell told the South Florida Sun Sentinel at the time. “We’ve been trying to get their attention since they were All Aboard Florida.

“We think we are the perfect alternative because Stuart is a smaller community than Miami and Orlando,” he added. “Stuart is the kind of place people from Florida can get away to visit the ‘Old Florida.’”

As recently as last week, Brightline was spotlighted by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who rode the train from West Palm Beach to Miami to highlight the railroad as a template for developing higher speed rail travel elsewhere in other regions around the nation.

The support is a far cry from more than a decade ago when some communities sued to stop the train service on environmental and other grounds. Some pointed to the lack of service for the region during the rail line’s startup stage, while marine industry interests cited potential drawbridge choke points at local waterways along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks used by Brightline.

To help resolve the litigation, Brightline made a commitment to build a Treasure Coast station within five years of the Orlando launch.

Orlando ridership on the rise

Brightline is upbeat about the ridership to and from Orlando thus far.

The service to Orlando International Airport started late last month with eight daily round trips between South and Central Florida, according to a monthly financial report for September. On Oct. 9, the service grew to 15 daily round trips “and by November we plan to increase frequency again to sixteen daily roundtrips,” the report says.

“Results to date are strong and accelerating, with 17,578 customers trying our long-distance service in September at an average fare of $84, growing to 40,219 riders paying an average fare of $91 from October 1-16,” the report says. “We believe the addition of long-distance service has fundamentally transformed our business, with average fares, ancillary revenue per passenger and ridership all increasing significantly.”