The Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District looks to get a major facelift as it plans to demolish and rebuild parts of its facility in Goleta.
The bus transit organization is going into phase two to modernize its facility at 5353 Overpass Road.
David Rzepinski, MTD project manager, and Will Todd, project architect, presented their construction plans to the Goleta Design Review Board on Tuesday for a conceptual review.
SBMTD plans to demolish and then rebuild its operations and maintenance building as a two-story facility. The existing building is too small for operations, according to Todd.
“This, when it is fully done, we can do everything from move our board meetings to this location if we need to, do any training at this location, there’s enough power security to run our operations if we needed to at this facility, which was important to us,” Rzepinski said.
They want to make it look approachable, despite it not being public-facing for its day-to-day operations.
“Bus yards, if you guys have seen those, even with what it looks like today is a visually busy activity so we tried to keep the architecture very clean and simple and easy to maintain,” Todd said.
The completed first phase of the project improved the landscaping, painting and security.
“Phase two is essentially going to be replacing everything that we did not touch in phase one,” Todd said.
The project will add solar panel canopies for parking alongside microgrid and resiliency components. The construction project will also allow the facility to go electric, allowing the electric bus fleet to operate out of there.
The bus wash building will get a steel-framed canopy adjacent to it. The building will also get 20 vehicle parking spots and two bike spots.
Additionally, the entire inside of the site will get repaved. There are also plans to fix the storm water systems, of which there are virtually none today, according to Todd.
Landscaping will be added around the building, and outdoor space will include amenities for bus drivers, addressing an MTD management concern that there was not much designed for employees.
Board member Dennis Whalen said he did not think the outdoor amenity for employees was very nice, but suggested maybe employees can walk across the street to the nursery for a more pleasant experience.
Additionally, business neighbor Marc Steininger, president at Chemtrol, shared his concerns over traffic the building would bring.
This building will serve as an addition to the SBMTD building in downtown Santa Barbara at 550 Olive St.
Project staff will return to the Goleta Design Review Board for a preliminary review on Nov. 12.
