WORK UNDERWAY ON NEW METRO TRANSIT BUS GARAGE

We’ve been getting a lot of questions recently on what the massive project is along I-94 in the North Loop. Well, here’s your answer.

The Metropolitan Council and Metro Transit are building a massive service garage on the site which is located at the corner of N 7^th Street and N 10^th Avenue. When complete next year, the new facility will have space for over 200 buses to be stored along with maintenance facilities and office space. It will be the sixth service garage for Metro Transit and will be located immediately north of their existing Heywood Garage and Metro Transit’s headquarters.

The 11-acre site, which was previously vacant, will be redeveloped into a two-story building that will span over 350,000 square feet. That’s pretty big, about 20,000 square feet bigger than Ikea’s Mall of America location.

The new building will include storage space for 216 buses, 24 maintenance bays, fueling and washing space, administrative offices, and rooftop parking. The new facility will also be electric bus ready and will be energy efficient featuring a solar thermal wall, a rooftop solar array and multiple initiatives to reuse rainwater. Buses will enter and exit the new facility at the back of the site along N 11^th Avenue. The new garage staff entrance will be located on the corner of N 8^th Avenue and N 10th Avenue.

Heywood Bus Garage Constructors, a joint venture between Adolfson & Peterson Construction and Knutson Construction, is constructing the new facility. The two companies submitted the lowest bid for the project which is estimated to cost just above $113 million. The new facility was designed by LHB Corp, MDG, RNL, Hallberg and HNTB.

300 jobs have been created for the construction of the new facility while over 400 living wage jobs are anticipated to be created when the new facility is at full capacity.

Work on Metro Transit’s new bus garage is anticipated to be complete in fall 2022.