At the April School Board meeting on Tuesday, United South Central Schools approved moving forward with a new transportation facility to replace the aging van garage currently located on the north side of town. The existing structure, originally built to house buses, now only accommodates vans due to its limited height clearance. Given its age and the ongoing cost of maintenance, the district is exploring a more cost-effective and proactive long-term solution.
This new structure will be a 54’ x 150’ x 14’ garage with five bays, each capable of housing two vehicles. Currently, we have a number of district-owned vehicles that routinely sit outside, with limited space available for indoor storage. This facility will provide space for all district-owned vans, four buses currently stored outdoors, and our activity buses. This will help to ensure that we get the best longevity out of every vehicle in our fleet.
Our School Board Operations Committee reviewed three possible locations for the new building: behind the school, on the practice football field, and near the softball field along 3rd Avenue SW. After careful consideration of our traffic patterns and what would be best for student safety, the committee selected the site behind the softball field on the southeast side of campus as the optimal location.
Sealed bids for the project were opened last week, and the district was pleased to see that the quotes came in significantly lower than expected. While this is still a major investment, USC continues to benefit from maintaining in-house transportation services rather than contracting with a for-profit company. This allows USC to experience significant cost savings in our transportation fund, which we then aim to retain and reinvest into improvements like this one.
As construction timelines are finalized, the School Board will also begin considering options for selling the former van garage property. We look forward to sharing more updates as this project develops.
