SANTA ANA : City Marks Opening of Maintenance Yard

The city celebrated the opening of a $20-million maintenance yard Wednesday, the largest public works project it has funded in a decade.

The 10 1/2-acre property will house the Public Works agency’s field operations and water staff, provide fueling and maintenance services for all city, police and fire vehicles, and include a warehouse for all surplus city supplies, said Jim Ross, the Public Works Agency’s executive director.

“This is probably one of the largest projects we’ve ever done,” Ross said.

“Just from a public works standpoint, it’s consolidating our operation from three different locations down to one,” he said. “It’s putting us much closer to City Hall, so we expect to put fewer miles on our equipment, and it will provide state-of-the-art facilities for our staff that work out there to monitor our water system.”

The yard at 220 S. Daisy Ave. replaces a 7.2-acre yard on Warner Avenue that is so cramped that firetrucks have to be serviced in the parking lot because they do not fit inside the maintenance facility, Ross said.

The new yard cost $12.4 million to build. More than $8 million in additional funds was spent to acquire property and make road improvements, Ross said. The Public Works Agency first began requesting a new yard in the early 1970s, he said.