In 2013, the Glendale City Council was advised by the city’s Department of Public Works staff that operations at the Glendale Municipal Landfill’s “south area” were approaching capacity and the closure of the southern portion of the landfill was eminent.
Glendale city leaders moved forward and approved a plan that called for the seamless transitioning of all landfill operations from the near-capacity south area to the landfill’s north area without impacting service levels to landfill customers.
The $4.6 million Municipal Landfill Facilities Improvement Project broke ground in February 2015 and was completed in January 2017. The project consisted of the design and construction of a new Administration Building, a high-tech Scale House and an Equipment Maintenance building.
Jack Friedline, director Public Works Department City of Glendale, says, “These improvements will help us achieve three principal goals.”
- Improved customer service by reducing wait times for our residents and business customers entering and leaving the landfill.
- Increase employee focus by transitioning staff from lean-to’s and trailers to a state-of-the art equipment maintenance facility and administration building.
- Add to the life of the landfill by ensuring seamless transition from the south cell to the north cell.
The transition plan also involved the removal of the original administration building, heavy equipment maintenance canopy and outdated scale house, all of which had exceeded their useful life and the construction of new and updated facilities in the northwestern section of Glendale’s landfill.
Additional site improvements included relocation of the existing 69 kV APS powerlines, construction of a new main entrance roadway, the installation of new roadway approaches to the new Scale House, roadway drainage enhancements, a new public drop-off area for recyclable materials, new directional signage and the installation of additional access road lighting.
At the project’s ribbon-cutting celebration, Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers said, “Over the years, Glendale Municipal Landfill has saved our city’s residents and businesses millions of dollars by avoiding costly long-haul disposal to other regional landfills.”
Phase I: Administration Building
The 4,368-square-foot administration building provides larger, updated staff workplace and offices, including ADA accommodations. New features include large restrooms with locker storage and showers, a training and break room and a conference room equipped with a large screen monitor, Wi-Fi and video conferencing capability.
Phase II: Scale House
The new 784-square-foot Scale House facility features two inbound and two outbound scales including one equipped with high-tech attend-free wireless weighting software system and two outbound scales (one bi-directional scale and one multi-axle vehicle scale) with drive-up service windows, a digital scale system, traffic lights and automatic gates to accommodate large volumes of customers.
Phase III: Equipment Maintenance Building
The new 5,249-square-foot covered and enclosed maintenance facility was specially designed to accommodate CAT Compactors and track vehicles. The facility features two heavy duty equipment work bays with steel-plated approaches and four overhead retractable entry/exit doors, an exterior wash-down area, large tool and storage areas, overhead crane for large heavy equipment maintenance and external recycled fluids storage/extraction area.
Project owner: City of Glendale Public Works Department, Landfill and Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Solid Waste Management Division
Project manager: Bill Passmore, principal engineer for Glendale
