Creating community through facilities design

TriMet Powell Bus Operations & Maintenance Facility

For over forty years, TriMet’s original Powell Garage had served them well. When the time came to modernize, they engaged us to help plan and design a new, innovative, and operationally efficient facility. We worked with TriMet to define their goals for the project—safety, health, happiness, and inclusivity—that would drive the design.

Notably, our modern design optimizes daylighting throughout the interior maintenance spaces and exterior bus storage. Daylight pours in from expansive skylights above, and strategic glazing placement within the overhead doors. This natural lighting approach enhances safety for supervisors, mechanics, and operators, and creates a more pleasant working environment. 

Our design also includes a three-bay fuel and wash building with a bus wash system that reclaims and treats water. Twenty-two drive-through bus maintenance bays eliminate the need for backing movements of long coaches and articulated buses. Above the bays, second-floor administration offices and operations spaces include employee amenities—a new fitness center, operators’ day room, station agents (dispatch) training rooms, and an employee café. The exterior of the building and partially covered break area have continuous glazing that connects employees to the outdoors and provide a view of the maintenance bays below. Maintenance technicians can also easily access this area via a staircase connecting directly to their office spaces.

The multi-phased construction of this project maintained consistent operations on site for the duration of the construction activities. With new bus yard improvements that include a new paved bus yard, TriMet now has room to accommodate over 300 buses and all new utilities. Additionally, an electrical battery electric bus (BEB) loop is sized to eventually enable TriMet to make this their first 100 percent BEB facility.