AVON, N.Y. — Matthews Buses Inc., a certified “Platinum Support” school bus dealer for Thomas Built Buses, has relocated and upgraded its western New York school bus sales, service, and support operations.

The Dansville, N.Y., operations are now housed in a new 35,000 square foot, state-of-the-art service, parts, and training facility in Avon. The company spent 2019 renovating a major portion of the East Avon Plaza into one of the largest dedicated school bus service and support centers in New York state, according to a news release from Matthews Buses.

“We built this facility to make sure that the buses used to transport our most valuable treasures, our children, function properly and are the safest they can be,” said Guy Matthews, vice president and general manager of Matthews Buses.

The new facility includes an 11,000 square foot service and pre-delivery inspection shop, a 12,000 square foot body/paint/collision shop, as well as a large 3,400 square foot parts department, a 1,700 square foot training facility and 7,000 square feet of office space, with plenty of room for future expansion, Matthews added.

The new service shop can accommodate work on eight full-size school buses, either under repair or in process for new bus delivery. It is equipped with a Premier Assessment bay, which will allow Matthews personnel to quickly assess a bus and begin the repair process. The shop is also outfitted with a dedicated wash and detail bay.

The body/paint/collision shop features a new, 20 foot by 60 foot Accudraft spray booth with environmentally friendly cross draft ventilation. All paint technicians are fully paint and adhesive certified by PPG. An adjacent explosion-proof mixing room is equipped with advanced paint color scanners and PPG computerized mixing equipment.

The 3,400 square foot parts warehouse will allow Matthews Bus Parts to significantly increase the number of inventoried parts to support its customers’ service departments, as well as the Matthews service center and mobile technicians.

Unique to the pupil transportation industry in New York state, Matthews Buses in Avon has a 1,700 square foot bus technician training space featuring the latest collaborative training equipment, including distance learning technology, according to the dealer. This training facility will accommodate more than 40 people with room to expand as needed.

In addition to training bus technicians, the space will be available to area school districts for their training and meeting needs, Matthews said.

“I’m proud of our commitment to an environmentally-friendly existence,” he added. “We installed geothermal heating and cooling equipment to provide a consistently comfortable work environment, and all lighting is highly efficient LED from the parking lots to the shop to the offices.”

Matthews also noted that the new facility is centrally located and provides convenient access to all major highways, allowing the dealer’s team of road service technicians and its in-house service team to provide customers with a more efficient experience.

The new facility is located at 5600 Avon-East Avon Rd., Avon, NY 14414. For more information, visit the website or call (800) 288-6287.