Photo courtesy of Ascent Construction Inc.

The 35-year-old ZCMI warehouse in Salt Lake City was transformed into a state-of-the-art, light rail maintenance facility.

Photo courtesy of Ascent Construction Inc.

Construction included installation of maintenance equipment, including wash and sanding bays, overhead cranes, rail lines and truck maintenance areas.

The Utah Transit Authority's Jordan River Service Center was a highly technical transportation-maintenance project. It included the complete transformation of a 35-year-old retail warehouse previously used by the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution in Salt Lake City into a state-of-the-art, light rail maintenance facility for rail cars traveling north to Layton and west to West Valley City. The service center is a model facility that incorporates the latest technology for rail communications and maintenance.

Construction began with the relocation and reinstallation of truck bay equipment from the UTA's Lovendahl facility and extensive interior demolition and remodeling to prepare the former warehouse for new maintenance components. The project had a challenging schedule and required close coordination among contractors integrating several aspects of construction.

The scope of work included installing new maintenance components, including wash bays, sanding equipment, overhead cranes, rail lines and truck maintenance bays. Crews also completely remodeled the administrative offices, communications and network operations center, conference rooms and training rooms in the 188,000-sq-ft building. Infrastructure work involved an extensive seismic upgrade, a full mechanical systems retrofit and replacement, floor removal, stabilization of the new building control system and a re-roof of the entire facility.

The service center project also required extensive coordination and communication with multiple subcontractors, design and engineering teams, UTA construction officials, city representatives and large-rail contractors responsible for building the many rail lines that connect to the facility.

The biggest challenge was thoroughly understanding and coordinating the multiple construction schedules of the other large contractors. The yard, rail and maintenance facility were fully integrated, and construction had to be managed so the entire team could meet a strict schedule and high standards. The project was completed three weeks ahead of schedule.

Key Players

Owner: Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City

Architect: Archiplex Group, Salt Lake City

General Contractor: Ascent Construction, Centerville, Utah

Structural Engineer: Reaveley Engineers, Salt Lake City

MEP: Olsen & Peterson Consulting, Salt Lake City

Entry submitted by Ascent Construction Inc.