Architectural Renderings Unveiled for M-1 RAIL’s $6.9 Million Tech Center

By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor

M-1 RAIL Penske Tech Center – Detroit

Last year ground was broken for an unprecedented public transit initiative in Detroit: the M-1 Rail Streetcar project designed to improve downtown and midtown Detroit’s transportation infrastructure and provide direct access to 125,000 jobs and 275,000 residents. With construction well under way at the 3.3-mile rail line, M-1 RAIL—the public-private partnership behind the $140 million project—has unveiled architectural renderings of the streetcar system’s tech center.

Located along Woodward Avenue between Larned Street and West Grand Boulevard in Detroit’s North End neighborhood, the tech center facility was named for civic leader Roger Penske, founder of the Penske Corporation of Bloomfield Hills and chairman of the M-1 Rail project. The $6.9 million Penske Technical Center is being developed by a team including Turner Construction Company, 3.L.K. Construction, ABE Associates, Inc. and RNL, a Denver-based designer of light rail and mass transit maintenance facilities.

M-1 RAIL Penske Tech Center – Detroit

According to M-1 RAIL data, the 19,000-square-foot tech center will have red brick facades that will blend with the neighborhood’s historical look and atmosphere. The facility is set for completion by the end of 2015, with passenger service expected to begin in late 2016. It will house all of M-1 RAIL’s computer and communications systems, as well as the streetcar line’s vehicle maintenance and operations team.

Almost 60 percent of the subcontractors hired to build the Penske Technical Center are based in Detroit, M-1 RAIL announced.

Renderings via M-1 RAIL