PM Airport project will seek bids on project segments

Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport board has opened the bidding process to start the next phase of the runway realignment project. The project was shut down after several months of moving dirt and completing contour work.

Airport Administrator Tony Bean last November told the Gazette everything was on track with the project prior to the planned winter shutdown. He also said at that time he expected the new bid package to be awarded around March.

M.A. DeAtley Construction out of Clarkston completed the first phase, and Ryan Bergstrom, consultant with Mead & Hunt out of Portland, said he expects M.A. DeAtley will bid again.

“They’d have to be the low bid,” he commented. “We’re expecting that they will submit a bid.”

This bid package includes four bid schedules, with the scheduling of those components dependent upon when funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) becomes available.

Schedule one includes excavation, installation of primary and supplemental windcones, construction of the utility corridor and runway and taxiway crack sealing. The second schedule includes excavation and storm drain improvements, while the third schedule includes installation of an underdrain and P-154 subbase and P-209 crushed aggregate base course, as well as continued construction of the utility corridor and construction of a new electrical building. Schedule four matches the second one with excavation and storm drain improvements.

“Generally, it’s mostly earthwork and storm water improvements,” said Bergstrom. “Funding from the FAA will dictate which schedule we will award first.”

Bergstrom also said some of the work from last year’s phase is still ongoing.

“There’s still earthwork that is happening on the 2016 contract,” he said. “You can’t move dirt when the ground is frozen and when there’s snow on top of it, though.”

He said that work will likely resume soon and be completed by the summer. He also said there is no firm timeline right now for when the following phase will begin. All depend on the FAA funding.

The $1.19 million project is being funded by FAA funds, as well as donations from local entities which helped the airport to reach its local match requirement for the FAA grants. The airport received $2.5 million each from the City of Pullman and City of Moscow, $1 million from Ed and Beatrice Schweitzer as well as Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, $500,000 from the University of Idaho, $1 million from Washington State University, $100,000 per year from Latah County, $1.25 million from WSDOT aviation and $250,000 from both the Port of Whitman County and Whitman County.

In the first year of the project, the airport received $16 million from the FAA, and Bean said he expects it will receive $20 million every year until the project is complete.

The project includes a redesign of the runway in its current location which is expected to extend it by 400 feet to “right size” it for the traffic it sees, Bean said. According to Bean, the airport had been operating under an exemption with the FAA since 2006, with the agreement to bring the runway into FAA standards by extending it and making it so the runway and taxiway are further apart. As of right now, the runway and taxiway are approximately 200 feet apart, and they will be reconstructed to be 400 feet apart.

The project is expected to extend to 2020, with a useable runway being ready by the fall of 2018.

For this next phase, a pre-bid conference is scheduled for today, Feb. 16, at 1 p.m. in the airport rescue and fire fighting building training room. Contractors intending to submit a bid must be present at the meeting in order to be able to do so.

Contract documents are available to be viewed at the Pullman-Moscow Airport administration office, and they can also be viewed online at http://www.questcdn.com.