Pace to lease East Dundee warehouse as temporary bus garage
Pace suburban bus service will lease a portion of a building in East Dundee to use as a bus garage until it can build a new permanent garage in Des Plaines or elsewhere in the Northwest suburbs, officials said.
Pace's board of directors this week approved entering a lease agreement to use about half of an 84,000-square-foot building at 401-405 Christina Drive in the Terra Business Park in East Dundee.
Some 40 buses will be stored inside the warehouse building starting early next year, when Pace plans to expand its Jane Addams Tollway rapid bus service.
The location was picked for its 2½-mile proximity to the tollway, said Patrick Wilmot, a Pace spokesman.
Terms of the lease are still being negotiated, he said.
“It gives us the ability to have some space temporarily until we can get a new Northwest garage built that would have capacity to handle I-90 service and the rest of our local service for the Northwest suburbs,” said Wilmot, adding that it could take up to three years to get a permanent garage.
Pace officials say their existing Northwest division garage, at 900 E. Northwest Hwy. in Des Plaines, is beyond capacity with 127 buses, and there are plans to expand the fleet. They've been looking at other locations, including the 17-acre former Salvation Army property at the northwest corner of Algonquin and Mount Prospect roads in Des Plaines.
Pace has made a formal offer for the property, but the Salvation Army hasn't yet responded, Wilmot said.
The bus garage plan faces an uphill battle at that site, with Des Plaines Alderman Mike Charewicz having said that he and residents were prepared to fight it because of the potential for noise and fumes.