The city of Spokane plans to construct a $14 million central facility for its fleet services division that would include compressed natural gas dispensing equipment, says Rick Romero, the city's utilities director.

The facility, tentatively named the Nelson Service Center, will be located on a city-owned, 16-acre parcel at 901 N. Nelson, just north of Broadway Avenue, in Spokane's East Central neighborhood.

The complex will include vehicle service areas, office space, and training facilities totaling more than 50,000 square feet of indoor space and several acres of uncovered parking, conceptual plans on file with the city of Spokane show.

The Nelson Service Center will be the city's first design-build project, Romero says.

The city has issued a request for qualifications and likely will select a design-build team in November, following a two-stage elimination process, he says.

Romero says construction probably will begin in the spring and is expected to be completed in the summer of 2015.

Fleet services has 185 employees and maintains, services, and performs minor repairs on more than 1,400 city-owned vehicles, with its biggest fleets used by the police, street, and solid-waste departments.

"This facility is going to be our opportunity to convert solid-waste department vehicles from diesel to compressed natural gas," Romero says. "It's going to have a payback for the city and its citizens, because the cost of CNG is half the cost of diesel."

As diesel vehicles are changed out to CNG, the operating savings will pay for the construction cost for the center, Romero says.

Fleet services will realize additional savings by consolidating services in one location, he says.