With Sound Transit deciding to build its light rail maintenance facility in Bellevue, the Edmonds School District is moving ahead with plans to relocate its maintenance and transportation operations facility to a new location in Lynnwood.

The facility, currently located at 3009 Alderwood Mall Boulevard, will be moving to property the district owns north of I-5 and east of the 52^nd Avenue West/Cedar Valley Road intersection at 204^th Street Southwest.

The site was under consideration by Sound Transit for a light rail maintenance facility, but Sound Transit decided to build its facility in Bellevue.

The District detailed its plans at a community meeting last week at Cedar Valley Community School.

Edmonds School District Executive Director of Business and Operations Stewart Mhyre noted that the idea to relocate the maintenance and transportation operations facility originated in 2006. At the time the plan was to move the district office, warehouse and maintenance and transportation operations facility to the 52^nd Avenue West property and to surplus the Alderwood Mall Boulevard property for capital projects.

“This project has been in the works for quite some time,” Mhyre said.

But due to the recession the district’s project got put on hold. At the time, the district was ready to move ahead, having received approval from government officials.

“We were ready to go, ready to build,” Mhyre said. “We were approved by the city. We just needed to write a check.”

At this time, the district is only moving ahead with the maintenance and transportation operations facility and will not be moving its district office or warehouse to the new site. Voters passed a Bond measure in February that included funds to move the maintenance and transportation operations facility. The current project will have to satisfy all of the local and state requirements.

The district doesn’t have the funds to build either the district offices or to move the warehouse. There are plans to have placeholders for both.

“Sometime in the future if the district has the funds, we could move the district offices there,” Mhyre said.

A traffic analysis indicated that most of the buses will be leaving the facility between 5-7 a.m., before the busiest time on 52^nd Avenue West, which is around 8 a.m.

Mhyre noted that the impact the facility will have on the area, is less than what the district had been previously approved for in 2007.

Work is expected to start on the site next spring, possibly in April or May, and will be completed in about 15 months.