When Mountain Line was formed in 1996, the historic railroad depot on Garrett Street was its home.
The small, single-story brick building housed the new transit system’s administrative offices and was the center of all bus operations. Maintenance was handled by Mountain Line personnel working out of the city garage.
In the fall of 2003, Mountain Line had purchased the former Pepsi plant at the corner of DuPont and Fairmont roads, in Westover, for $1.75 million and began renovations. The transit system’s administrative and maintenance components moved into the facility in 2005.
Even so, bus operations remained at the depot for another 13 years.
Mountain Line was notified in October 2017 that the city of Morgantown, which had received $4.1 million for riverfront renovations from the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust, would not renew its lease for the depot building.
The transit authority, which had no prior notice and no transition plan in place, had until July 2018 to find a new location and move. All told, the transit authority condensed a process that typically would have taken 18 months into a six-month window and ended up consolidating all operations at its Westover facility.
“We will have been in this building for 20 years, next year,” Mountain Line CEO Maria Smith said. “Over the course of this time, the agency has grown, the use of the facility has changed and building has aged.”
In recent years, the transit authority has taken on significant improvements to the building, which now carries the name Pifer Terminal in honor of the late General Manager Wayne Pifer.
In the fall of 2022, Anderson Excavating completed a $1.2 million project to replace all the asphalt in the bus travel and fueling areas with a new concrete surface. That work also included new asphalt in the administrative parking area and the construction of a new 20-space parking area adjacent to the administrative lot.
In early 2024, Mountain Line paid Lytle Construction about $500,000 for work that included four new office spaces and a conference room on the second-floor admin level as well as improvements to lower level terminal area.
“In the Pifer Terminal, the customer service area and waiting area was reconfigured and renovated with new flooring, lighting, ceilings and paint as well as a rearrangement of the restroom facilities,” Smith explained.
Earlier this month, Superior Contracting finalized additional work in the lower level.
The $132,000 project renovated office space and provided a full kitchen inside the break room and a safety room for drivers and employees to rest during breaks or when held over for long hours.
But there are still significant capital improvement projects to come.
“We expect to do a roof recovery/replacement project in the upcoming year. Our current speculation on the cost of the project is about $1.5 million,” Smith said. “The construction portion of this contract will go out to bid early in 2025 with construction expected to take place over the course of the summer.”
Complicating that project is the fact that the roof of the building is home to 572 solar panels covering some 30,000 square-feet.
The project cost includes an estimated $113,000 to remove, store and reinstall the solar panels.
