Denton’s proposed downtown transit station likely won’t displace the Center for the Visual Arts after all.

City Council members on Monday endorsed a bus station site on city-owned land at the southeast corner of East Hickory Street and Railroad Avenue — just east of the Center for the Visual Arts building. A parking lot and facilities management building currently occupy the space.

The site is also the anticipated location of the Denton County Transportation Authority’s downtown commuter rail platform. DCTA plans to bring commuter rail to Denton from Carrollton as early as 2010, linking Denton to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit line that stops in Carrollton.

“Rail [service] won’t work for the city unless we can put bus [service] with it,” Denton council member Bob Montgomery said. “And by doing it this way, rail and bus will go side by side.”

Officials hope the bus and rail service would be a springboard for pedestrian-friendly development around the site.

The $3.72 million bus transfer facility would include indoor and outdoor public amenities, including benches, canopies and restrooms, city officials said.

The facility would become DCTA’s central bus hub in Denton, supplanting the area known as Williams Square east of the Wells Fargo building, DCTA spokeswoman Dee Leggett said.

“It also would provide the city and DCTA more of a transit presence in the community,” Leggett said. “It would really establish the city of Denton as a leader in the provision of transit services.”

Council members indirectly approved the bus station site as part of an ordinance dealing with the city’s application for $3.1 million in federal aid for the project.

The city and DCTA would work together to fund the required $620,000 local contribution, said Mark Nelson, Denton’s chief transportation officer.

If funding is secured on schedule, the station could be completed as early as 2009, he said.

City staff members recommended the site over two other possibilities: the Center for the Visual Arts building on East Hickory Street and another undisclosed location to the south, Nelson said.

Local arts leaders had expressed concern over losing the visual arts building, especially in light of the city’s plans to revamp Hickory Street into a pedestrian-friendly “arts walk.”

Officials hadn’t decided whether to renovate or replace the facilities management building on the selected site, or how they would make up for the lost parking lot, which serves the facilities management building and City Hall East across the street, Nelson said.

Although the city owns the site, council members met behind closed doors to discuss acquiring land around it as part of the project.

After the meeting, Montgomery said the city expected to buy one additional piece of land and would be entering into negotiations with its owner, whom he declined to name.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com