Naperville School District 203 officials plan to build a new transportation hub on 5th Avenue — and hope not to have to build an extra fence as part of it.
The district secured the unanimous endorsement Wednesday of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission for a variance that would allow an existing fence erected by the apartment complex northwest of the property to suffice as the required screening border.
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Commissioners also endorsed a request for another variance that would eliminate a side-yard setback requirement for one of the two lots that make up the site.
The variances — if approved by the Naperville City Council — would allow District 203 to create a more efficient layout for its bus parking and maintenance operations behind Naperville North High School.
District plans call for construction of a 12,400-square-foot maintenance garage and office for bus drivers to replace two existing buildings that limit parking on the site.
“With the bus maintenance garage in the middle of the property, the building is an obstacle, and that’s going away, resulting in a more efficient layout of the bus parking area,” project architect David Patton said.
The new site layout includes 134 parking spaces for buses and 160 for employee vehicles. The building will have four maintenance garages for bus repairs and another bay for a bus wash, Patton said. It also will provide office space for transportation administrators and a large room for the district’s roughly 125 bus drivers, some of whom spend several hours on-site between morning and afternoon routes.
“We’re trying to make it comfortable for them so they can spend their day in there,” Patton said.
Planning and zoning commissioners said they hope the new site layout will help alleviate traffic backups on 5th Avenue and buses parked or idling on the street.
They voiced no concerns about the landscape screening variance. A staff report said that if the wooden fence erected by the Windscape of Naperville apartments is taken down, the school district will be responsible for replacing it.
The district also plans to install “extensive landscaping” to further buffer the transportation facility from the apartment homes, according to the report from Isaac Marlott with the city’s planning services team. An 8-foot-tall chain-link fence with privacy slats will be installed around the bus parking area, Patton said.
In February, the school board approved $12.2 million in building contacts with Pepper Construction for the hub.
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Marie Wilson is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.