ST. PAUL — When White House officials chose St. Paul’s Union Depot for President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday of a $600 million competition for federal grants to fund infrastructure projects that create jobs, they picked a site that received nearly $125 million in federal funds for a major renovation in an earlier round of the program.

Union Depot went into decline in the early 1970s after the city’s dwindling passenger train service was moved to a new depot in the Midway area between downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“This project symbolizes what’s possible,” Obama said of the station’s rebirth.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-St. Paul, said the station was in serious disrepair when she toured it shortly after being elected to Congress in 2000.

“It had been overrun by pigeons, windows were broken and shuttered, and the space was cold and largely abandoned, except for a few empty mail carts,” McCollum said in a statement beforehand.