Industrial Infrastructure Reimagined
The goals for the new transportation center were to construct a state-of-the-art facility to maintain and prolong the useful life of the District’s fleet, remove all unnecessary transportation department traffic from the village, provide an off-campus training center for staff, and create opportunities to share services with local municipalities.
The Facility
The facility and all site improvements occupy 12.5 acres of the 28.8 acre site purchased by the District for this project. Site features include paved parking for the entire 70 plus bus fleet, staff and visitor lots with access control to the secure bus parking area, and on-site storm water management. All of the concrete walks and door aprons include a snow melt system; which greatly reduces the amount of salt and other chemical melting agents required to maintain safe access into the facility.
There is a drive-through snow scraper to remove snow from the bus tops, electric vehicle charging stations and a fueling island that can receive full tanker trucks of both gasoline and diesel fuel. The island was designed with a provision to accept alternative fuels such as propane.
The building is 41,000sf and houses the transportation and vehicle maintenance staff. The entire building is heated with an in-floor radiant system, a high efficiency ventilation system and LED lighting. Security systems include electronic access control and video surveillance.
A large translucent skylight and floor to ceiling window walls were designed to bring daylight into interior spaces, as well as provide views to the surrounding wooded site.
The office area is approximately 15,000sf and includes a visitor lobby and waiting space, offices, records storage, 2 conference rooms, and a staff break room as well as 3,700sf of training spaces.
The Maintenance Area
The maintenance area is 21,000sf and includes a mechanics’ office, locker rooms, parts and fluids storage spaces, 13 service bays with 6 bus lifts, a 20,000lbs capacity 2 post lift and a 70,000lbs extra heavy duty lift.
The variety of equipment and oversize doors were designed to allow anything from the district’s Suburbans to large front-end loaders and even fully loaded dump trucks to be serviced.
The need for maintenance capacity on vehicles other than school buses was driven by the collaboration between the school district and the town of Lysander, which uses the building to maintain its municipal fleet as well. Each work bay includes a workbench and toolbox station, electrical cord reels, air compressor lines, fluids dispenser and drop-down exhaust hookups. The space also includes a body shop, paint booth and a wash and detailing bay.
