VMDO Architects

The City of Charlottesville moved its municipal transit operations center to a site south of the downtown area in 2010. The 27,000 square foot Charlottesville Area Transit Service Operations Center includes four buildings—one each for administration, vehicle maintenance, vehicle washing, and vehicle servicing. Together with a parking area for 60 buses, these buildings occupy six acres along one of the city’s major entrance corridors.

The City of Charlottesville has demonstrated a broad-based commitment to sustainability. The Owner and design team worked diligently to extend this ‘green’ thinking to an industrial project —a project type not generally considered or recognized for sustainability efforts. The project has successfully achieved LEED Gold status.

Priority number one was to make CAT a great place to work. The administration building is surrounded by a cooling and drought-resistant landscape, including a flower-filled employee courtyard. Natural ventilation is provided for and encouraged in all the working spaces. Notably, the project is set to meet the threshold for all 15 LEED Indoor Environmental Quality Credits.

The new CAT Operations facility was designed to meet the present needs of CAT with a vision for the future. The buildings are also designed to accommodate future conversion of the fleet to lighter than air fuels. Support vehicle and employee parking areas are designed for future plug-in hybrid use. Concern for both current savings and future conservation paved the way for a robust, 50,000 gallon rainwater harvesting system which, when coupled with on-site water recycling, will save 1.56 million gallons of water each year.