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<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Office of the Mayor <br /> <br />NEWS RELEASE <br />May 15, 2009 <br />4:15 p.m. <br /> <br />Transpo facility to relocate to support Ignition Park <br /> <br />Contact: <br />Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications & Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-1564 <br />or Ann Kolata, Senior Redevelopment Specialist, 235-9371 <br /> <br /> <br />The South Bend Redevelopment Commission authorized an agreement Friday with <br />Transpo, a public agency serving the area’s transportation needs, which will, in effect, <br />relocate Transpo’s new facility for the benefit of Ignition Park. <br /> <br />The Redevelopment Commission unanimously approved two actions related to the sale of <br />land at the southeast edge of Ignition Park to Transpo for the construction of new <br />administrative offices and facility for bus maintenance and operations. <br /> <br />Construction will begin this summer on a new 165,000-square-foot facility to replace <br />Transpo’s smaller facility on Northside Boulevard, which is more than 125 years old. The <br />facility is being built to obtain LEED Platinum certification and will take 12 to 18 months <br />to complete. LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certification of <br />the U.S. Green Building Council. <br /> <br />Construction on the new Transpo facility originally was to have begun more than a year <br />ago at the site of the former South Bend Stamping Plant, for which demolition was <br />completed in June 2007, the largest demolition in the city’s history. Transpo was to be <br />the first tenant in what was planned as the Studebaker Industrial Park. <br /> <br />But those plans were reconsidered when the world’s leading computer chip makers <br />selected the University of Notre Dame as the home for MIND (Midwest Institute for <br />Nanoelectronics Discovery). The former Studebaker Corridor now is planned as Ignition <br />Park, the downtown portion of South Bend’s two-site state-certified technology park. <br />Ignition Park is being developed with an eye to commercialization of nanotechnology <br />discoveries growing out of MIND. When the potential community value of an undivided <br />Ignition Park became clear, Transpo officials worked with the City to relocate their <br /> <br />