NYCTA Grand Ave. Depot & Central Maintenance Facility
In 2003-2004 the NYCT Grand Ave Depot & Central Maintenance Facility was ranked #13 in the country for largest construction projects awarded, with a cost over $250 million.
This bus facility, built in Queens for New York City Transit, is far more than a big parking space. The Grand Avenue Bus Depot and Maintenance Facility in Maspeth is located on 5.5 acres and covers over 550,000 sq. ft. It is a state-of-the-art and environmentally sound facility.
The four-story layout includes fueling, cleaning and storage facilities for 200 buses on the first floor, an advanced 27-bus maintenance facility on the second floor, and offices for NYCT's Department of Buses on the third floor. Add a 150+ parking garage for employees on the roof, and the project is a full-service facility. It is home to more than 740 employees who will operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
The facility's primary function is to support the continent's largest bus fleet. Today the NYCTA has over 8,000 buses in operation within greater NYC. In this new facility, operators have the ability to maneuver the city's 60-ft. articulated buses up and through the second floor. The maintenance shop will be able to repair and maintain the fleet of electric and compressed natural gas buses and expand the capabilities of the maintenance facility for Brooklyn and Queens NY. The complex will also contain fueling and defueling stations within the property grounds.
The new facility has a second floor paint shop with "environmentally friendly" paint booths. These booths are self-contained and can operate in two modes. One mode operates with zero VOC coatings, while the second is a special abetment mode for solvent-based products. This second mode allows the Transit Authority to utilize traditional solvent-based materials, while releasing nearly 100% clean air to the environment.
The environmental mode, custom designed by Managed Air Systems, is climate controlled and designed to avoid the release of VOC emission by utilizing some of the latest technology available on the market today. The installed cost of these paint booths was over $16MM.
There are four custom-designed paint booths cabins and Rapid Air makeup air units and a Trane Air Conditioning system.
These state-of-the-art paint booths come with two centralized paint kitchens that house 55-gallon drums of paint that are piped through over 2 miles of fluid lines. The circulating fluid system allows on-demand color change with the utilization of Graco Precision Mix plural components and Robo Mixers mounted on Titan three access pneumatically driven lifts. In addition to the paint delivery system there are dedicated Atlas Copco breathing Air systems providing clean grade D air to 8 operators.
Building on the former site of a car rental business, the project team had to contend with difficult logistics, including limited construction space. To save on land, the architects chose a four-story design. The cherry on top was employee parking which, along with proximity to public transportation, will reduce the impact that the new facility has on the community.
This is the first "green" bus facility of its kind, with state-of-the-art systems, designs and materials. Innovative features include photovoltaic cells on the roof that will produce some of the building's energy and rainwater collection units that will supply water to the cooling and bus-washing systems.
The building's environmentally sound features are not just extras. They respond to set guidelines established by a gubernatorial executive order for state transportation facilities to be energy efficient and environmentally aware – meaning the project teams must meet exacting regulatory specifications.
The end result of this project is a technologically advanced, "green" structure that the NYCTA plans to use as a model for future depot and garage projects. It will also be a bench mark for other transit agencies across the country.
