Downtown Redmond station is a proposed Link Light Rail station on the north side of Redmond Town Center shopping mall in downtown Redmond, Washington.
The proposed location of the station is at Cleveland Street (SR 202) between 164th Ave NE and 166th Ave NE. However, this station may be moved northeast to a new location more towards central Downtown Redmond because it will not have a stop, as previously considered, at Redmond Transit Center.
The station was originally included in the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure in 2008, but was left out of the East Link Extension after a funding shortfall stemming from the City of Bellevue's desire for a tunneled alignment under Downtown Bellevue. Sound Transit instead completed environmental reviews and selected a preferred alignment to Downtown Redmond, indefinitely deferring the final segment of East Link until a later date. The Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, passed in 2016, includes $1.1 billion in funding for the two stations in Downtown Redmond, which will open by 2024. Preliminary engineering on the Redmond extension was approved in February 2016, after being suspended in 2010.
Cost performance
The cost performance of the "Redmond Tech Center" (Microsoft campus) to Downtown Redmond station segment was independently analyzed by The Transport Politic, side by side with other ST3 proposals. It was found to require a subsidy of $15.33 per rider assuming a 30-year project amortization, more than five and a half times more expensive per rider than a proposed intra-Seattle Ballard extension. An expert review panel concluded the Redmond line would cost a comparable $17 per rider but $84 per new transit rider.