City of Saskatoon
Civic Operations Centre on Valley Road

Valley Road on Saskatoon’s southwest edge takes people out of the city on a scenic drive that follows the South Saskatchewan River. People travel the road drive for a game of golf or some fun with the kids, to pick strawberries or buy bedding plants, for a leisurely lunch or to launch a canoe. Valley Road also takes Saskatonians past a City of Saskatoon facility – the Civic Operations Centre (COC). 

The COC is a campus-style development on 180 acres of land located north of Valley Road as the road exits Circle Drive and just northwest of the Landfill.  Phase It provides a 41,110 square metre home for Saskatoon Transit, with wash lanes and maintenance bays and room to store 224 buses indoors. The COC provides administrative, fleet maintenance, and equipment storage space for Saskatoon Transit. 

A snow management facility also exists at the site for snow melting operations, Saskatoon’s first permanent snow storage facility, with enough space to store up to one-million cubic metres of snow. The facility removes salt, sand, gravel and debris from the snow before the meltwater makes its way to the river. The site has a “no tailgate banging” policy.

Possible future developments on the COC site include transferring the City Yards, training facilities for the Fire Department and Saskatoon Light & Power, and other civic services.  

Valley Road History

In earlier days, the road through the valley was directly connected with Elevator Road which ended at the Canadian Government Elevators. It was travelled by farmers delivering their bags of grain by horse and wagon, or by the 1950s, by truckload.  It was known as the low road to Pike Lake because it followed the river valley. The high road in the hills is today’s Highway 60. 

In 1946, Elevator Road formed the western limit of the new VLA development of Montgomery Place. 

In 1964 the through-road from the elevator to the valley was severed by the move of the CN station from downtown Saskatoon to Chappell Yards. To curtail heavy traffic through Montgomery Place, Elevator Road ended at Mountbatten Street.  A connecting road from 11th Street to the train station was also built and named Chappell Drive. 

A new roadway to Valley Road was built eastward, linking Valley Road with Dundonald Avenue at the eastern edge of Montgomery Place. With the completion of Circle Drive in 2013, the Dundonald connection was severed and Valley Road is now accessed from Circle Drive.