Construction is moving quickly on the Northshore School District’s new bus barn and depot in the Canyon Park area.

The current depot sits near downtown Bothell, off Bothell Way Northeast and is part of the pending 18-acre property sale between the school system and the city of Bothell.

The new depot site sits at 21325 20th Ave. S.E. Mark Wainwright, director of marketing for design firm and project manager Studio Meng Strazzara, said the second phase of the construction on the new depot began in late August.

That second phase consists of paving and miscellaneous site work, but probably most noticeably includes construction of a 30,955-square-foot building containing bus-maintenance bays along with 11,465 square feet of office space.

Wainwright noted designers planned a somewhat different approach in construction of the new building. Instead of being built up vertically, walls will be assembled horizontally on the ground, then raised into place.

“You’ll see that building come together rather quickly,” Wainwright said.

In reality, workers were raising major pieces of the wall in early September even as Wainwright was making his comments by phone.

Other ancillary depot facilities will include a bus-wash building and system, two fueling stations, four fuel storage tanks and storage space.

Wainwright described the location of the new bus depot as just outside the Canyon Park Business Center, home to Northshore’s Support Services Center and future home to the Secondary Academy of Success High School.

The latter currently sits in the W.A. Anderson building on Bothell Way Northeast. The Anderson school also is part of the pending land sale to the city.

According to Wainwright, the new bus depot covers 12 acres, including four northern acres to be shared with Bothell’s Public Works facility. There are also 16.9 acres of off-site wetland mitigation.

Now completed, the first phase of construction consisted of the wetland mitigation, installation of retaining walls and underground utilities, among other preliminary and site preparation steps.

The project went to bid in February and Sierra Construction Services won the contract with a base bid of $11.6 million. Wainwright indicated the bid came in less than expected as the sluggish economy encouraged lower bids along with lower materials costs.

Wainwright said he expects construction to take about a year, with completion arriving in June 2010.