York Region transit facility achieves LEED Silver certification

DailyCommercialNews.com
Oct. 14, 2016

An operations, maintenance and storage facility in Richmond Hill has received LEED Silver certification from the Canada Green Building Council.

The facility, designed and built by York Region Rapid Transit Corporation, is used to store and maintain York Region Transit/Viva bus rapid transit vehicles. It is located near Leslie Street and 16th Avenue in Richmond Hill's Headford Business Park.

According to the Government of Canada release, LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

The 481,679-square-foot facility holds up to 196 Viva buses and opened in July 2015. Among other environmental features, the facility includes a reflective white roof to save on cooling costs and storage for 500,000 litres of rainwater for use in the bus wash, the release adds.

The total project cost was about $135 million, with the Government of Canada contributing approximately $57 million through the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund. The Region of York provided $60 million and the province of Ontario provided $18 million.

"Richmond Hill is committed to creating an environmentally sustainable place for people to live and work," said Dave Barrow, mayor of Richmond Hill, in a statement.