Out of curiosity, who actually is responsible for the Bus Terminal? Having read the Ashkenazy lease it's not them - it's not included with the S. Station headhouse. I believe it's owned by the MBTA, yet the T barely acknowledges its existence on their website where they only mention it as parking for South Station - any of the Bus Terminal's associated elevators and escalators are excluded from its status page. That said, that facility actually seems more or less well run. I'm not in there often, but it's bathrooms are updated and clean, the rotunda area is well maintained if feeling a little dated. It more or less meets "airport quality" standards - I realize that there's basically no retail in there, but it is about to get almost doubled in size. Buy out Ashkenazy, hand over management to the Bus Terminal's operators.
Honestly, the current structure isn't even that bad - it's also not that old. It dates to what, 1990? It's only 5 years older than the Bus terminal, just so much more poorly maintained in recent years. It's got plenty of clear height, and is plenty airy if rather visually cluttered. Just getting it back to a circa 2010 state would be a massive improvement, but what I think it really needs is a good cleaning and paint, followed by lighting improvements. It's just not as bright as we expect a modern facility to be - that really hasn't been helped by the tower construction, which removed that natural light and Ashkenazy which has added new ads on the glazing leading it to feel extra dim.
Now that natural light has been eliminated from the space, you need to replace it somehow, and you need to introduce a cap on square area of advertisements you can sell within the terminal - it's absolutely too much right now.
