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Updated: April 18, 2010 - 9:13 AM

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SHOREVIEW MAINTENANCE FACILITY

4615 Victoria St., Shoreview

Type: Municipal

Size: 52,500 square feet

Cost: $5.5 million

Construction Manager: EDS Builders

Architect: Buetow & Associates

Details: With the coming of spring, work on the $5.5 million expansion and remodeling of the city of Shoreview's truck fleet maintenance facility is heating up, participants say.

After working inside over the winter, crews are shifting into high gear on the project, in which the outmoded and cramped 1970s facility next to the Ramsey County Ice Arena along Hwy. 96 will be expanded by 11,000 square feet and thoroughly remodeled with an eye toward "green" retrofitting and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation.

City officials say the facility was built in 1975 and was last remodeled to its current size and configuration 10 years later. Since then, Shoreview has grown significantly, adding to its public infrastructure and putting more demand on its city trucks and the crews that operate them. The expansion and remodeling is meant to meet both current and future needs.

The building's roof, mechanical systems and electrical grid will be rehabbed, and some interesting sustainable features have been incorporated into the designs by Roseville-based Buetow & Associates, said Doc Smith of EDS Builders, who is construction manager on the effort.

"Under the designs, the water that comes off the roof can be used for washing the city trucks," Smith said. Nowadays, Shoreview is using purified city water in the wash bays.

Smith said a 20,000-gallon storage tank will be used to settle and filter out the sediments from the rainwater, which will then be used for both truck washing and the facilities' toilets.

Another green innovation at the site will be the use of pervious concrete in its parking lot, which eliminates the need for stormwater drainage. Smith said using such concrete on sandy soils is a sustainable option. Excess runoff from big storms will be funneled into a storage tank, where it will be filtered and released into Martha Lake behind the facility.

City officials are also seeking to work with the Rice Creek Watershed District to restore the degraded shoreline behind the facility, using native grasses and vegetation to set an example for other industrial users in the area.

DON JACOBSON

Don Jacobson, a freelance writer based in St. Paul, can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com

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