For all but the last few weeks of her more than 30 years as a commuter, Edith Ardiente didn't much enjoy waiting for her train at Tinley Park's spartan 80th Avenue Metra station.

On Monday, the now-retired Ardiente didn't mind her idle time as she admired the vaulted ceilings as she sipped hot coffee beside a fireplace inside the new $11.7 million 80th Avenue station. She scarcely noticed the crowd of village officials forming at the opposite side of the 5,200-square-foot building for a dedication ceremony.

"I wish we had something like this when I was commuting," said Ardiente, who retired just weeks after the refurbished station opened to the public in October. "This is so nice. We had just a little hut for the longest time."

The "hut" that stood at the station since the 1970s is long gone, replaced by what Metra Chairman Brad O'Halloran on Monday called "the Taj Mahal" of the Metra system.

The station opened to the public in October but the formal dedication was postponed until workers completed a pedestrian underpass.

"The people of Tinley Park understand that stations can be a destination as well as a starting point," O'Halloran told a small crowd made up mostly of local officials at the south steps of the station.

The station is the busiest on Metra's Rock Island Line, which stretches from Joliet to LaSalle Street in Chicago.

The station borrows from and improves on the smaller station the village refurbished on Oak Park Avenue in 2003 that has won awards from architectural and transit groups and has become the central feature of Tinley Park's downtown district, said Village Trustee David Seamon.

The 80th Avenue station is adjacent to the village library, parks and the 280-acre campus of the Tinley Park Mental Health Center, which was closed by the state earlier this year and should soon be available for redevelopment, Seamon said.

Metra provided the village with $4.8 million to fund construction of a "basic" station that would handle the 2,500 daily commuters at the station. The village received $1.2 million in federal grants and chipped in nearly $7 million in village funds to upgrade construction.

By including three outdoor shelters, commuters have more than 7,000 square feet of covered space. And the main station boasts vaulted ceilings with exposed wood beams, a brick exterior with copper trim and a slate roof.

Many communities have upgraded their stations as part of transit-oriented development plans, which strive to make communities more commuter friendly while boosting economic development near transit hubs, said Hani Mahmassani, a professor at Northwestern University's Transportation Center.

The Oak Park Avenue station, in the heart of Tinley Park's historic, pedestrian friendly downtown, is a classic example of civic investment in transit-focused development, Mahmassani said.

The 80th Avenue station, which is encircled by several acres of commuter parking lots, is less likely to attract visitors who aren't rushing to get on or off trains, Mahmassani said.

"It's great to have a nicer station with more amenities," Mahmassani said. "But the size of (the 80th Avenue station), it is probably oversized for that location."

There certainly wasn't much to recommend the old 80th Avenue stop, Ariel Friesner said on Monday, recalling her four years of commuting to art school downtown.

The tiny brick cubicle didn't even have bathrooms, and in the winter months, it seemed there was only enough heat to melt the slush her fellow commuters tracked in from the parking lot.

"Was there heat? I don't remember," Friesner said. "This is amazing. I never dreamed it would be like this. It's nice just to be in this room."

agrimm@tribune.com