Up to $122,680,000 in new grant funding announced by the Federal Railroad Administration for Baltimore’s Penn Station could help jump-start the revitalization of the historic train station.

The money will help further the renovation and restoration of the more-than-century-old structure as well as plans for a new building north of the tracks to house Amtrak operations as well as passenger entrances and a waiting area.

The announcement could help one of Baltimore’s highest-profile redevelopment projects get back on track after rising costs forced Amtrak and its project partners to pause construction over the summer.

As part of an effort to revitalize its entire Northeast Corridor, the passenger rail line between Washington, D.C., and Boston, Amtrak has been spending billions of dollars in Maryland — to start building a new tunnel under West Baltimore, replace aging bridges and redevelop Penn Station. It’s not clear how the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump could affect those plans, which the Biden administration supported strongly.

In 2017, Amtrak partnered with Penn Station Partners, led by Beatty Development and Cross Street Partners, to embark on the redevelopment of the station and nearby Amtrak-owned properties. The plans included new train platforms and a redone station as well as a privately developed high-rise building for apartments, office and retail space on an Amtrak-owned parking lot abutting Lanvale Street just north of the station.

Scaffolding cropped up around the façade of the Beaux-Arts-style building as crews got to work on the restoration. The development team eyed transforming it into a new transit-oriented development hub similar to Washington D.C.’s Union Station; Amtrak saw it as critical to doubling its ridership along the Northeast Corridor in the coming decades.

Then, progress slowed. Inflation and supply chain issues forced Amtrak to announce a pause on construction activities in July — it needed more money.

The new grant money could resolve that, but Amtrak spokespeople said they did not have an updated construction timeline or further project details to offer in light of the announcement.

Amtrak did cut the ribbon on two new platforms to serve its high-speed Acela trains earlier this year, but the status of the private side of the development is unclear. Penn Station Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

Amtrak also has been tied up in a dispute related to exterior station design changes. It wants to move passenger pickup and drop-off to St. Paul and Charles streets, which hem in the station to the east and west, respectively, and convert the current passenger loading zone into a pedestrian-only plaza.

But the Maryland Transit Administration and Baltimore Department of Transportation, which also are involved in the project, want to establish dedicated bus lanes on those streets.

The dispute raises a tricky question — at a transit hub, should cars or buses have curbside priority?

Amtrak did not respond to a question about whether the dispute has been resolved. In an email, an MTA spokesperson said the project partners continue to work toward a resolution.

The announcement from the Federal Railroad Administration, which details roughly $1.5 billion for projects along the Northeast Corridor, also includes more than $80 million for D.C.’s Union Station and nearly $97 million to replace about 100 miles of catenary wire, which provide power to the electrical trains, between Baltimore and New Carrollton. The existing wire is more than 80 years old and prone to failure, the administration said.