The city of Davenport, Iowa, has opened a new bus storage facility for the Davenport CitiBus public transportation system. The tension fabric structure was designed, manufactured and installed by Legacy Building Solutions. Prior to construction of the facility, Davenport’s city buses were housed in a large building across the Mississippi River in neighboring Illinois. The new garage facility keeps the buses on the city’s home turf, under the control of its own public works department.
“Our transportation system requires the diesel buses to be stored in a facility to keep them warm and protected from the elements,” said Joe Balge, design and construction coordinator for the Davenport Department of Public Works. “Legacy’s customized fabric structure design was able to fit our purposes.”
The building features a fire-rated, 15-ounce fabric roof attached to a solid steel frame. It measures 300 by 70 feet, with a peak height of 31 feet, 4 inches, and can hold approximately 25 buses at one time. Each endwall of the tension fabric structure features three doors – two 16-foot-wide by 13½-foot-tall, and one 20-foot-wide by 13½-foot-tall – allowing buses to enter on one side and exit out the other.
Temperature is maintained around 50 to 60 degrees during the winter inside the heated fabric building, which includes R25 fiberglass insulation. A portion of the roof at the peak is non-insulated, providing a fabric skylight area for natural sunlight to enter during the daytime. Other building features include primed steel components, 18-inch overhangs with mesh soffits, and sprinkler and lighting systems hanging from the steel I-beam framing.
“It was a good experience working with Legacy,” said Balge. “Their in-house installation crew put up the building very quickly. They’re easy to work with and willing to help, and the communication with the city and responsiveness throughout the project was very good.”
