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Amtran has proposed to construct a new bus storage garage on its Fifth Avenue campus as the centerpiece of a possible $5.7 million project.

The garage would hold nine buses and is desired because the organization is buying three new buses, increasing its fleet size from 26 to 29 — too many buses to store in its current space, a section of the building that also houses the maintenance area.

Amtran received permission from PennDOT to increase the size of its fleet due to a recent expansion of service hours into the evening, along with its addition of a route to Bellwood and Tyrone, said interim CEO Michele Barnes after a meeting Wednesday.

PennDOT has not yet committed to funding the project, which would include a small office building connected to the garage with a breezeway, a decorative security fence around the entire campus and full-depth reconstruction of the parking lot where the old Roaring River Mills building once stood, according to Greg Elliott of EADS, the organization’s consulting engineer.

Elliott presented a schematic site plan to the board Wednesday for the storage garage to be constructed in the grassy yard between Sixth Avenue and the back of the Trolleyworks building and side of the Battery Barn building.

That location is an alternative to the location recommended by PennDOT in a feasibility study that called for the garage to be built on the Roaring River Mills lot.

Officials embraced Elliott’s proposal and rejected the PennDOT recommendation because the Roaring River Mills lot is used for bus driver training and parking by the Altoona Area School District during events at nearby Mansion Park.

Member Larry Bilotto recommended that Amtran proceed to final design on the project, so Amtran would be ready to go with it if PennDOT has available funding at the end of a fiscal year due to the postponement or cancellation of some other project.

The location proposed for the bus garage project is higher than the Trolleyworks building, which means it would be necessary to remove soil on the building site and to construct a retaining wall along Sixth Avenue, Elliott said.

That retaining wall would probably be seven or eight feet high, he said.

Because of past industrial operations at the campus site — it was formerly home of the Altoona and Logan Valley Electric Railway — it’s likely the excavated soil is contaminated, officials said.

Excavated soil would need to be tested and, if found problematic, either kept on site or taken to a hazardous waste landfill for incineration, they said.

It could be temporarily stored on the former Roaring River Mills site until it could be dealt with, they said.

But there might not be enough room on campus to store it permanently if it turns out to be contaminated, as the proposed bus storage garage would be coming close to “filling (the campus) up,” officials said.

Amtran has ordered the three new buses from California-based Gillig and was expecting them to arrive next year.

As of now, however, they likely won’t arrive until sometime in 2027, according to Barnes.

Still, the buses are likely to arrive before the garage can be built, she said.

It won’t matter if buses are stored outdoors for a while, Elliott said.

For the long term, though, it’s better to store them inside, he and Barnes said.

Amtran built a vehicle storage garage a few years ago along Fifth Avenue to accommodate vans and other agency vehicles, but not buses, which don’t fit there, Elliott said.

The proposed new storage garage would be 50 by 150 feet, while the office, which would be located just off the northeast corner of the garage, would be 40 by 60 feet.

The office would include restrooms and a kitchenette and would be connected with a canopy to a door of the Trolleyworks conference room, Elliott said.

The garage would be steel framed with brick facing, while the office building would likely be steel studs, also with brick facing.

The brick would be selected to match buildings on the rest of the campus.

There are no current security issues, but a fence was recommended by the Federal Transit Administration at a recent safety risk evaluation, Barnes said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.