After years of planning, budgeting and grant writing, the Rogue Valley Transportation District’s new transportation and operations building is ready to be utilized and shown off to the public.

The new headquarters for the district is coming just in time for RVTD’s 50th anniversary, celebrating its creation in 1975 and recognizing its role in connecting locals from point A to point B and beyond. After a few years of planning, the first two leased vans rolled on July 18, 1977.

“We needed to build for the future, and that’s what this building is,” said Julie Brown, general manager of RVTD and chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission. “This is definitely state of the art.”

To commemorate efforts since 2017 to construct the operations building on a 1.34-acre plot in north Medford, organizers are inviting the public for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2 p.m. Friday.

The new facility is located at 3200 Crater Lake Ave. in Medford.

“I think it’s the final piece of saying, ‘This is completed and here we are,’” Brown said. “I hope the community will show up for the ribbon-cutting and they’ll be able to tour the building and be able to see what we’re doing here.”

The facility and accompanying parking garage cost $13,010,990 to complete with architecture and engineering services.

The new transportation and operations building was constructed with efficiency and future planning in mind, offering drivers and other employees an all-in-one space equipped with lockers, extra room to train drivers, administrative offices, kitchen and lounge spaces and more.

“One of the things that is really nice about this building is that it can be self-sufficient if we are in a catastrophic situation,” Brown said, noting generators and other failsafes are in place in case of an emergency.

Another feature is a brand-new gym to keep drivers healthy and active, which will be a major upgrade to the district’s former 1,200-square-foot building that’s a stone’s throw away from the new facility.

“We had one bicycle in that room and a treadmill that 77 people were trying to use, so now we’ll have a gym that they can all use,” Brown said.

The 10,000-square-foot operations building is more than eight times larger than the previous building.

“Right now, we have in this one building six people sharing one office space, and it’s about a 10-foot office,” Brown said of the former headquarters.

Plans for the new facility began in 2017 after the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2017, a $5.3 billion transportation package funding transportation districts across the state.

“That transportation bill in 2017 was passed and gave us the means to actually expand those routes, expand our services and provide frequent service for our community,” Brown said.

The Rogue Valley Transportation District also received a $12.2 million grant from the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund and federal funding to bolster the new facility, and those funds will be used for future expansion and improvement projects.

“We still have some additional things that we’re going to be doing to build on this property with that grant, but this was the first piece of it, the parking garage and this building,” Brown said.

Future plans include increasing RVTD’s fleet of 47 buses to 60, doubling its staff of 77 current drivers, demolishing the old operations building, optimizing the parking area for buses, building a shop for bus repairs and more.

“It’s in the future, and we know it’s probably about 10 or 20 years out before we get to that point,” Brown said of some of the objectives of RVTD’s master plan.

In the short term, administrators and staff are focused on replacing the compressors of the buses that run on compressed natural gas and a sidewalk replacement project along downtown Medford’s Front Street, which is a main hub for RVTD bus operations.

Events in 2025

This is a significant year for RVTD, with the district celebrating its 50th anniversary with a plethora of upcoming events.

Some of those events include a May 14 commemoration of the exact date RVTD was established, Bike Month in May with a weeklong schedule of events, and September’s Get There Car Free Challenge.

Brown has been with RVTD — which is the fourth-largest transportation district in Oregon — for the past 29 years and has served in the general manager role for more than a dozen years.

“Over the last 29 years that I’ve been here, I’m always looking at what the future holds, where do we need to be and how do we accommodate those things,” Brown said. “I love what I do.”

To learn more about the transportation district or keep track of upcoming 50th anniversary events, visit RVTD’s Facebook page or rvtd.org.