What’s Inside: Greater Sudbury Transit and Fleet Centre

The former National Grocers distribution centre at 1160 Lorne Street has undergone renovations to become a new garage and office facility for City of Greater Sudbury Transit and Fleet Services. It contains all the necessary functions to repair buses, ambulances, fire trucks, snowplows, and other vehicles and equipment essential to the delivery of municipal services. Construction began in June, 2013 for scheduled completion in late August, 2014.

The Transit and Fleet Centre covers 135,000 square feet on 8.4 acres, leaving ample room for future expansion. The design phase of the project included extensive consultations with municipal management, employees, structural, mechanical and civil engineers. The building design has the following features:

• 47,934 square feet to permit storage of 70 buses with space options for articulated buses,
• 47,821 square foot garage, with 28 repair bays, including bus, heavy equipment and light vehicle hoists,
• 15,292 square feet for welding, body, paint, rebuild, tire and parts and inventory shops,
• 7,879 square feet for mechanical wash bays, a fueling station and a detailing area for transit and fleet vehicles,
• 10,098 square feet for administrative staff offices, meeting and training rooms, locker rooms and lunch rooms,
• automatic overhead doors and strategic placement of support pillars to accommodate the turning radius of large vehicles arriving for servicing,
• an environmental clean room for servicing sensitive equipment on fire trucks, transit buses and other vehicles,
• a tank farm providing diesel fuel, urea, engine oil, transmission fuel, antifreeze, windshield washer fluids and waste oil management,
• a back-up generator, centralized compressed air systems, a battery charging station and a cash handling facility for Greater Sudbury Transit fare boxes.

The building design incorporates energy efficiencies that were evaluated through a value engineering process based on reasonable payback, expected performance and functional benefit:

• heat recovery of exhausted air,
• 85 per cent recycled water in mechanical wash bays,
• air cooled refrigerated air-dryers,
• on demand natural gas water heaters,
• premium efficiency motors,
• power factor correction in main switchgear,
• daylight and presence lighting controls in offices,
• LED exterior lighting, and
• additional insulation in the north walls.

The renovation to 1160 Lorne Street incorporates many features to ensure a safe environment for staff:

• non-slip floor topping and improved drainage in mechanical areas,
• ventilation systems that exceed minimum requirements and air quality sensors,
• fall arrest systems for working on large vehicles,
• eye wash and shower stations in working areas,
• tire racking for stored tires,
• exterior traffic flows that are separate from parking and building entrance areas,
• interior traffic flows that are separate from pedestrians and c vehicles, and
• emergency lighting and back-up generators.

The building design for the Greater Sudbury Transit and Fleet Centre was awarded to IBI Group and Perry + Perry Architects Inc.

General contractor for the Greater Sudbury Transit and Fleet Centre was Capital Construction (2007) Inc.

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