Downtown Goldsboro underwent a significant transformation between 2011 and 2015 through determined local efforts, a shared vision, and key partnerships. Beginning in 2006, the City of Goldsboro and the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation invested in the Downtown Master Plan, which included a 13 month public input process that created a collective vision for downtown and identified desired public and private investment projects. In 2008, the North Carolina Department of Transportation acquired Union Station, the historic train station built in 1909, to secure its future as a passenger rail hub through eastern North Carolina connecting Raleigh and Wilmington, leading to a partnership with the City to identify funding for rehabilitation. At the same time, the City, the Goldsboro-Wayne Transit Authority, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail and Public Transportation divisions planned a multi-modal transportation facility at Union Station, including a transfer facility and administrative offices for transit services. That plan brought two Federal Transit Administration grants totaling $1.7 million for design and seed funding for construction of the Goldsboro-Wayne Transit Authority Bus Transfer Center. Another major recommendation of the Downtown Master Plan was a substantial redesign of Center Street to encourage business development and improve pedestrian use, and after years of schematic planning, the City funded $2.3 million for the 200 block of North Center Street, completed in November 2012. Its completion was widely embraced as a visible downtown transformation and renewed revitalization efforts. In 2013, the United States Department of Transportation announced the Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery grant opportunity, and the City's application won one of 27 urban awards nationwide. The $10 million award, announced in September 2013, funded three additional blocks of the Center Street Streetscape project from Mulberry to Spruce Streets, eight additional blocks of streetscape work linking downtown to Union Station and the Goldsboro-Wayne Transit Authority Bus Transfer Center along portions of West Walnut, Carolina, West Mulberry, West Chestnut, and Georgia streets, and construction of the bus transfer center and site improvements. The City contributed about $4.5 million to these projects, and construction began in August 2014 and was completed in November 2015.