Elected officials from the City of Albany, Ga., have approved the construction of a $1.4 million fleet facility that will replace three separate worn-down repair facilities, WALB reported.

“The biggest plus to this move is that we could take all of our employees and fit them into one facility,” Yvette Fields, director of the Central Services Department, told Government Fleet.

The 24-bay facility, which will house about 30 staff members, will be used to maintain 1,000 vehicles and pieces of equipment, including transit buses, police cars, fire trucks, sewer vacuum trucks, bucket trucks, solid waste trucks, and off-road equipment. A facility at the transit office will not be regularly staffed, but will be available for emergencies.

The new facility will be equipped for compressed natural gas (CNG) bus maintenance, meaning technicians can maintain and repair these vehicles inside the building. The facility’s larger size also means technicians can work on larger pieces of equipment inside.

“Currently, some of our equipment is too large to be able to fix in the bay so they have to be worked on outside in the elements (rain, heat, cold, wind, etc.),” Fields explained.

Approval was just given to begin the design process, and the city expects the facility to be fully functional in 10 months.

The project will be paid for using special purpose local option sales tax VI (SPLOST) funding, according to WALB.