MADISON, WI — The C.D. Smith Construction team recently joined the City of Madison for the ribbon-cutting and open house of the Nakoosa Trail City Fleet & Radio Shop Building. The event included a message from Mahanth S. Joishy, City of Madison, Fleet Superintendent and comments from Hannah Mohelnitzky, City of Madison Engineering Division, PIO; Joel Brennan, Wisconsin Department of Administration, Secretary; Lorrie Lisek, Wisconsin Clean Cities, Executive Director; Satya Rhodes-Conway, City of Madison, Mayor; and Dane Bernau, C.D. Smith Construction, Project Executive.

The Fleet/Fire/Radio Shop Facility provides light, medium, and heavy vehicle service and repair spaces for the City of Madison’s fleet of police, ambulances, fire apparatus, service automobiles, plow trucks, vans, garbage trucks, construction equipment, and more. The area of this building is around 110,000 square feet for servicing over 1,400 fire trucks, police squads, garbage trucks, snowplows, and other city vehicles and large equipment in one location, a task that used to span four locations.

The city moved to its new fleet services building late last year, but the pandemic forced them to hold off on holding an open house. The event celebrated the new building with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting event and educational tours focused on building, sustainability, and mechanical features to show the public what the fleet does.

Sustainability is a theme for the Fleet Service. It was a goal to be future-forward on sustainable features as well as achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Sustainability features include dimming daylighting controls and thoughtfully placed windows and lights, foam insulation in the outside walls, LED lighting systems with motion sensors, hot water piping in the floors for efficient radiant building heat, rooftop solar units, a sun wall to preheat incoming cold air, and kaleidoscopic sun catchers to amplify natural sunlight and convert it to energy to power the two charging stations in the yard that service city, employee, and public vehicles.

"Like all construction projects, this project had its unique challenges," Bernau said at the event. "Starting construction in the fall of 2019, we had a lot of rain. So much rain that you could have paddled a canoe across the building. And in the spring of 2020, we began navigating the challenges associated with the pandemic. Nonetheless, we finished the project, and here we are today. We could not have done it without the collaboration and extra effort from the city and the design team. ... We worked 37,000 hours in the field without a lost-time injury. Countless hours were worked in planning and design, and this project represents what can be done when we come together and work as an integrated team."