This is what we know…

1. The layout and programmatic decisions for the station are final. The design was the culmination of months of negotiations between all affected parties, including the ever-difficult Union Pacific. (It’s Union Pacific’s tracks, and if you want to use them — or go over them — you have to play by their rules.)
2. The building itself can be modified — and not just the brickwork pattern and glass coating. That being said, the style will likely remain the same: the arched roof; the modern feel.
3. The tower is being redesigned. It will be more striking, more distinguished. It may be taller. The lantern side may be thrown away altogether, and it definitely should be. (Ask me why a light panel makes up the entire face of the tower that the sun sets on, and I wouldn’t be able to answer the question, either now or ten years from now. I hope I won’t have to. I hope we can all forget it ever happened.)
4. The civic space will be located in Block J (across the street), and retail will line the plaza, including a space “perfect” for a restaurant, which would keep the plaza lively during non-commute hours. Residential units are planned above the retail in the building on the south side of the plaza. The plaza is described as taking the signature train station (which was very similar to the SF Ferry Building), and turning it inside out. It may work; only time will tell.
5. The smaller building near the bus loop (with space for a newsstand and small café) may be redesigned, not in size or location, but possibly in style. I wouldn’t expect much however; the building will still likely mimic the station behind it.
6. AndersonPacific is taking an arguably non-New Urbanism train station (at its core, it is a suburban train station that funnels commuters from their cars onto the platform; that is how it was designed by the train station design firm tasked with designing it), and making it work in a New Urbanism context, a context we bought into, and a context we hope will be carried through in Hercules.
7. The City will try to improve communications (again). (Again.)

This is what we know. Now we wait for the final design to be released. Construction may start as soon as April.