New runway opens at airport; terminal behind schedule

Ralph Pokorny/Daily Mail-- Sprouls Construction Company workers spread and compact the rock base for the hangar floor at the Nevada Municipal Airport's new terminal building. Construction, which is running several weeks behind schedule, may be completed by the end of March.

Nevada's new 5,000-foot concrete runway at the Municipal Airport opened in January, nearly a month after the Dec. 21 scheduled completion date, and is now being used by local pilots.

"It looks great," Scott Buerge, airport board member and pilot, said during an airport board meeting Wednesday.

While the runway itself is finished, there are still a few things that need to be done.

"We need to do some seeding along the runway and a lot of little things," Mark Mitchell said, adding that planting the grass seed will have to wait until some work can be done on the dirt along the runway.

"I landed there last night and anyone who doesn't think we need a cross-wind runway, should have been with me," Buerge said.

Jody Bryson, airport manager, said that was a city issue.

The Missouri Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Agency would not give the city grant money to make the existing cross-wind runway at the airport useable. The other work on the runway was paid for with grants that paid for 90 percent of the cost, with the city providing a 10-percent match.

The city will have to pay the total cost for any work to make the crosswind runway useable.

Like the runway construction, construction of the new terminal and hanger at the airport is several weeks behind schedule.

When the city held the groundbreaking for the new facility on Oct. 9, construction on the building was expected to start by the end of October.

The contract with Sproul's Construction, who is building the facility called for completion of the terminal and hangar no later than Feb. 8.

"It's too bad they didn't start in October," Mark Mitchell, the city's project manager for the terminal, said.

Bryson added that they missed a lot of good construction weather, noting that weather was better in late fall than it has been recently.

Mitchell told the board during a Jan. 10 meeting that the building was delivered to the airport on Dec. 4 and Sproul's Construction worked for a day and half, finding that the soil was not suitable to support the building. The proposed solution would have added $20,000 to the construction; however, Chris Ball, the architect for the project, came up with a less costly method to solve the problem.

Currently the foundation for the building is complete and Sproul's is preparing to pour the concrete floor.

Mitchell told the board during their meeting Wednesday that Sproul's has asked for an extension on the construction deadline to March 11.

"The architect says they already have 15 weather days, so we're looking at the end of March right now," Mitchell said, adding that the longer they wait to give them any extension, the quicker they will get the work done.

There is a $200 per day penalty, for each day the project is not finished after Feb. 8.

"I wouldn't let up on them," Bryson said before the board decided to not grant the extension.

The board also approved a change order for the contractor to move the HVAC and the electrical meter box from the middle of the sidewalk in front of the office to the north side of the building, where the electricity is routed at an estimated cost of $700 to $1,000. There is no electricity available where the contractor originally proposed locating the equipment.

"Let's swap them days for the cost of the change order," Bryson said.

When the runway was renovated the old lights, the rotating beacon and the beacon tower were replaced and the airport board put the old equipment out for bid with the money from the sales of these items going to help furnish the office and do other work.

Wednesday the board voted to accept the $801.91 bid from Mose S. Troyer for the beacon tower; the $1,572 bid from Carey Barrett for the rotating beacon and the $23 bid for the blue/green lenses and the $31 bid for the clear lenses from Glen Christie. Although the airport board has the authority to accept these bids without council approval, they voted to send them to the council for their approval.

The board also voted to not accept the bids for the four-box and two-box V.A.S.I. lights and the 20-red/green lenses. These items will be re-bid.