The Dunkirk Common Council agreed to pay $20,000 for a feasibility study on an Amtrak station at Tuesday’s meeting.

“One of the topics and issues that I’ve had so many people ask about, including President (Stephen) Kolison from SUNY Fredonia is, can we work on getting an Amtrak stop here,” said Vince DeJoy, the city’s planning and development director, in a workshop before the meeting.

“This is an opportune time, because there’s $1.2 trillion in the (federal) Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Amtrak is going to be receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of $66 billion to develop new stops, buy new train sets, and so forth.”

DeJoy said the stop would “greatly benefit” ImmunityBio, the California biotechnology outfit that’s moving into the Athenex space. He said the company’s CEO wanted to offer support for the concept. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer also supports it, he added.

“We now have better opportunity to acquire property on the north side of the tracks with some demolitions and some available sites that could potentially serve as this Amtrak multi-modal train station,” he said.

Stone Consulting, of Warren, Pa., specializes in railroad issues and will conduct the study. DeJoy, formerly Jamestown’s top planner, said he had worked with them previously on other train issues.

“They’re going to be meeting with CSX, with Amtrak and try to pave the way for this…proposing sites, passenger platform design and infrastructure that is needed,” he said.