The Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) broke ground last week on a new, innovative, and environmentally sustainable Operations and Maintenance facility in St. Cloud.
The 300,000 square foot Hickory Tree Road campus, to be built in phases, is needed to sustain service to rapidly growing St. Cloud and surrounding Osceola County. The project’s design, and green construction techniques promise to make the center OUC’s first net-zero carbon emissions facility and possibly the first in the state for an electrical utility, according to OUC CEO Clint Bullock, in remarks made during the ceremony.
The facility’s buildings will ultimately total 80,000 square feet with natural lighting, and be partially powered by a floating solar array on the site’s retention pond. Numerous electric vehicle charging stations are being provided for the utility’s ever-growing fleet of electric vehicles, including line service trucks and other specialized vehicles, which were also on display. Cisterns will capture over 20,000 gallons of rainwater for use on the site. The utility has a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The campus is projected to be completed and operational by late 2023 and will have an initial workforce of 50 employees, to service the St. Cloud, east Osceola County, and south Orange County territory. The multiphase operations center will include a “front of house” for public access, administrative offices, a parking deck, field personnel dispatch, a warehouse/maintenance building, fleet maintenance, fueling island, truck docks, a covered pole barn, pole layout area, open storage area, emergency staging laydown areas, and potential solar farm & substation.
The 24-acre site will also include joint-use space for City of St. Cloud government employees. St. Cloud Mayor Nathan Blackwell thanked OUC for their 25 years of dedicated utility service and economic partnership with the community in his remarks during the ceremony.
The OUC project started on a green foot since acquiring the former concrete plant property in 2019. In June of that year, 400,000 pounds of OUCdonated concrete bin blocks from the property were used in the sinking of an old cargo ship turned man-made reef off the coast of Fort Pierce.
Earlier this month, OUC donated 50,000 pounds of concrete, in the form of six precast underground utility junction boxes, to the St. Cloud Fire Department’s Alan C. MacAllaster Public Safety Training Complex. The concrete structures will be used as part of the fire department’s confined space training, allowing the fire department to create a simulated drainage system above ground. Firefighters will be able to train on rescuing utility workers in the event they are injured or incapacitated while repairing or evaluating drainage systems.
“At the end of the day, this is dollars saved for our taxpayers,” said St. Cloud Fire Rescue Chief Jason Miller, in an earlier OUC press release.
As OUC removes the concrete to prepare the site for construction, it is donating the concrete structures to various groups, including an upcoming artificial reef project in neighboring Brevard County.
OUC has been providing electric power to St. Cloud and portions of eastern Osceola County since 1997.
