The passenger rail station is being cleaned and repaired by Depot Redux, Lawrence Moderns and other volunteers.

Hopes of purchasing and restoring Lawrence’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe train depot will have to follow a different track than once envisioned.

City commissioners in June said they were interested in exploring a low-cost purchase of the 1956 depot at Seventh and New Jersey streets.

But city staff members recently have been told by BNSF leaders that the railroad is not interested in selling the land that the depot sits upon.

“They are not willing to have the land go out of their hands,” said Diane Stoddard, assistant city manager. “But they are open to discussing options of transferring ownership of the building or perhaps leasing the building to the city.”

The city, though, will have to decide whether it is interested in such a deal. Stoddard said the city doesn’t want to potentially spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the building to have the railroad decide it later wants to do something different with the land.

In June, commissioners were told that it would cost about $500,000 to bring the building into compliance with the American with Disabilities Act and to make several necessary repairs.

Leaders of a citizens group, however, said they’re still hoping the city can gain control of the deteriorating depot. Carey Maynard-Moody, an organizer of the group Depot Redux, said having the city take ownership of the building is the best way to ensure that it ends up being designated as a historically-significant building.

“This is a building that has some worth and value historically,” Maynard-Moody said of the building that was built in a modern post World War II style. “BNSF is not in the business of historic preservation of its buildings. It is in the business of freight and the passage of freight.”

Stoddard said the city this week sent BNSF a list of repairs that city inspectors believe need to be made to the building. The list includes major work such as replacing the building’s roof. Stoddard said the city hopes BNSF would agree to make the necessary repairs to preserve the building. The city is waiting on a response from the railroad.

The Depot Redux group and other citizens already have started to do some basic maintenance at the building. Group member Marty Kennedy said volunteers have cleaned the windows, bathrooms, floors and added a welcome sign and map to the depot.

Kennedy, a former city commissioner, said he thinks the city could successfully rehabilitate the station.

“The city getting control of the depot would be the best long-term solution,” Kennedy said. “We know the city would have to do the work in phases. We understand it wouldn’t be a quick fix.”

About 3,700 passengers a year use the depot to board a pair of Amtrak trains that run through the city. But regional Amtrak supporters say that number could grow to about 14,000 passengers per year if a proposal to add new rail service between Kansas City and Oklahoma City materializes.