Reimagining Bucharest’s Central Station: PPP and Air Rights as Tools for Metropolitan Integration

Railway-station redevelopment is increasingly associated with transit-oriented development, land-value capture, and metropolitan regeneration, yet post-socialist station areas remain insufficiently examined through an integrated spatial, operational, and financing lens. This paper addresses that gap through a scenario-based case study of the Gara de Nord (Bucharest’s North Train Station)–Basarab rail complex in Bucharest (GN-B). The study combines GIS-based spatial diagnosis, node–place assessment of Bucharest–Ilfov rail stations, purposive stakeholder interviews, survey evidence, and a seven-criterion multi-criteria analysis comparing six redevelopment scenarios (S0–S5). Results indicate that the train stations complex performs as a highly strategic transport node but remains weakly integrated as an urban place. The preferred comprehensive scenario combines station modernization, intermodal restructuring, decking over parts of the railway yard, mixed-use air-rights development, public-space creation, and phased PPP delivery. The paper argues that PPPs and air rights can support station-led regeneration in Bucharest only if embedded in transparent governance, public coordination, explicit value-capture rules, and social safeguards.