AUBURN – A $247,000 grant will help the Twin Cities get the second part of a two-hub bus system.

The federal money is slated for building a bus station in Auburn’s Great Falls Plaza similar to Lewiston’s Oak Street station.

“It’s not a surprise, but it is welcome,” said Don Craig, director of the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee, which operates the Citylink bus system.

“Right now, we’re operating out of a simple little shelter in Auburn,” Craig said. “This helps us a lot.”

Like the Lewiston station, the Auburn one would be built onto a new parking garage. Councilors approved $5 million in bonds in March to build a 400-space garage in Great Falls Plaza.

The new garage would go on city-owned land on the northern part of the plaza, between the Esplanade and the Tom Platz-owned surface parking lot. The city hopes to break ground on the garage in the spring of 2005 and finish in the fall.

The bus station should add about $300,000 to the cost, according to Transit Coordinator Marsha Bennett. The grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation covers all but $50,000.

“Now it’s a matter of getting the whole thing off of the ground,” Bennett said. “It’s really the final piece of the two-hub system, so we’re eager to go.”

All Lewiston routes feed into the Oak Street station, and all Auburn routes feed into Great Falls Plaza. The two hubs are connected by a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes.