Environmentally Friendly Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot Opens

The official opening of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in Manhattan was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new facility.

The depot opened for limited service on Nov. 23, and can accommodate 150 buses once it becomes fully operational in January 2015. The new 400,000-square-foot depot is a three-story structure that includes maintenance areas and an administrative wing.

The new structure replaces an aging facility with a state-of-the-art depot that meets the city’s transportation needs while minimizing its impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

As part of the design-build team with Silverite Construction, STV served as the architect- and engineer-of-record, and provided building information modeling (BIM) services.

Presiding over the opening of the facility was the MTA chairman Tom Prendergast, New York City Transit (NYCT) president Carmen Bianco and NYCT president Darryl Irick. In attendance at the event were STV executive chairman Dominick M. Servedio, P.E., project manager Joseph Lucca, P.E., LEED® AP, assistant project manager and vice president Donald Harris, as well as union representatives, elected officials and members of the community.

“I am proud of the work STV performed in the design of this modern bus depot for the city of New York,” Servedio said. “Thanks to this project, the city has a new, environmentally friendly transportation facility that also addresses the needs of the community.”  From planning and design through construction, the process has involved the full participation of the Mother Clara Hale Depot Community Task Force.

Located on the site of a former trolley barn in the Harlem section of Manhattan, the building has been transformed into a new sustainable bus depot that is on target to earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification. LEED® design elements include a green roof to reduce the building’s carbon footprint, and a rainwater collection system that will allow storm water to be used for depot operations such as bus washing.

“The opening of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in Manhattan demonstrates tremendous green building leadership,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO and founding chair, USGBC. “The strength of USGBC has always been the collective strength of our leaders in the building industry. This building will be used heavily but its impact on the environment and its demand for energy from the grid will be lessened by the features incorporated by STV.”

The depot’s façade features the first artwork project commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design for a bus depot. Local artist Shinique Smith was commissioned to create “Mother Hale’s Garden,” a large-scale mosaic piece installed on the east façade of the building facing Lenox Avenue, and laminated glass artwork in windows on the north and south sides of the building.

Since opening its doors more than 100 years ago, STV has become a leader in providing a range of planning, engineering, architectural, construction management and environmental services for transportation, infrastructure, facilities and energy projects. The firm is ranked 42nd in Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms survey and 12th in the Top 40 Engineering/Architecture firms in Building Design + Construction magazine.

For more information, contact:

Jill Bonamusa
(212) 614-3354
jill.bonamusa@stvinc.com

Mark Ginocchio
(212) 505-4916
mark.ginocchio@stvinc.com