New Station Signals Progress : Van Nuys: Officials hope the redesigned train facility will draw businesses nearby to the vacant GM site.

Los Angeles City Councilmen Joel Wachs and Richard Alarcon presided over the dedication Monday of a redesigned station for train passengers next to the site of the now-closed General Motors plant, which they hope will draw other businesses to the area.

Previously the station was nothing more than an outdoor platform for Metrolink commuter trains--which some potential passengers avoided because of drug dealing there, a Wachs aide said. It is now a 2,400-square-foot building of green glass, with an Amtrak ticket office, interior and exterior passenger waiting areas, restrooms and a parking lot dotted with day lilies and wispy trees.

In the near future, a bus shuttle linking the station to nearby Panorama Mall might be set up, Alarcon said.

“These are enhancements that had long been planned, but I think as time has moved forward, it became clear that this will have the impact of increasing the number of people who could use the GM site,” said Alarcon.

The city has been trying to sell or lease the 100-acre abandoned factory site, which has cast a pall over the neighborhood, a reminder of the well-paying union jobs that were lost when GM closed the plant in August 1992, and a symbol of an area in decline.

On Monday, Alarcon said negotiations are continuing to bring retail and manufacturing firms to the former plant.

“We’re moving forward with that,” he said. “The [new passenger] stop is about a minute’s walk from where the retail facility will be.”

At the revamped station, passengers will be able to purchase Amtrak tickets four days each week, from Friday through Monday, and to plan trips and check their luggage, said Tom Henry, an aide to Wachs.

From Tuesdays through Thursdays, passengers may purchase tickets from train conductors.

The station will be served by four daily Amtrak trains operating between San Diego and Santa Barbara. One train each day will continue from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo.

The facility will continue to be served by morning and afternoon Metrolink commuter trains running between downtown Los Angeles and Oxnard, Henry said.

But, as evening approached Monday, the station was empty, except for an electrician fiddling with light bulbs, an Amtrack ticket agent and a lone passenger, Gunhild Feil, who was waiting with her son for the 4 p.m. train to Santa Barbara, en route to Santa Maria.

“It looks pretty fancy to me,” Feil said as she unloaded her suitcase and bags of Christmas presents from a rental car. “But it looks like no one else is using it.”

Not so, said ticket agent Stan Clinkscale, who estimated that the morning Metrolink ridership was about 200 passengers.

Prime train-riding time coincides with rush hours, Clinkscale said. It’s busy in the morning, with an “afternoon slowness.” Come early evening, traffic will pick up again. But, waiting for her train, Feil didn’t mind the station’s sluggishness.

A native of Denmark, Feil said that even though she now lives in Santa Maria, she doesn’t own a car and relies on public transportation and her bicycle.

“I find the station really neat,” Feil said, entering the waiting room with black metal chairs, blank television monitors and a “Thank you for not smoking” sign still wrapped in plastic.

“The times I use Amtrack, I’ve found it relaxing,” she said. “It’s definitely not the last time I’ll use it.”

But she did have one small gripe.

“There’s no coffee here,” she gasped. “I can’t believe it, a train station without coffee. That would never work at home.”

Williams is a Times staff writer and Folmar a correspondent.