Eastside Light Rail Base Completed In Bellevue

BELLEVUE, WA — Sound Transit's East Link extension logged another major milestone this week, with the completion of the Bellevue light rail base. The operations and maintenance facility will staff up to 260 employees, tasked with storing, servicing, maintaining, and deploying close to 100 light rail vehicles.

The East Link — or the 2 Line — will begin service in 2023, connecting fourteen miles of track and 10 new stations between Seattle and Redmond. The Redmond Link extension, slated to open in 2024, will add another 3.4 miles of service and two stations, reaching the downtown core and Marymoor Village.

The new Bellevue base will operate 365 days a year, housing approximately 96 new light rail trains, and serving as a critical piece of infrastructure as the Link continues to expand across the region. The sprawling "OMF East" campus will host retail shops and offices, with plans to develop another seven acres neighboring the facility to build affordable housing.

"The new base will allow us to triple our light rail fleet from 62 vehicles to 214, enabling the opening of light rail extensions to Northgate later this year, followed by Mercer Island, Bellevue, and the Bel-Red corridor in 2023, and Lynnwood, Federal Way and downtown Redmond in 2024," said Peter Rogoff, Sound Transit's CEO. "In addition to creating mobility throughout the region, the affordable housing, retail and office deployment around this site will make it possible for more folks to live and work just steps away from light rail."

Sound Transit shared a few more key features at the new Bellevue base, including:

• 14 service bays
• Cleaning and wash bay
• Almost 145,000 square feet of shops and office areas
• Storage for 1,300 essential items including tools, parts and maintenance equipment
• Nearly 300 poles supporting train power
• A freestanding sculpture by Christian Moeller called “Nails” stretching for nearly 500 feet along the paved public bike path bordering the site
• A rooftop 100-kilowatt solar array to offset energy use

The Hensel Phelps Construction Company designed and built the facility using nearly 600,000 hours of union labor, officials said.