Airport Board changing approach for new terminal

Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

When the city of Nevada requested bids for a new terminal building at the Nevada Municipal Airport they were confident the construction cost estimated by the architect was close to what the submitted bids would be.

They were wrong with all of the bids coming in well above the $390,000 the city had to build a new terminal and hangar at the airport.

During the July 3 city council meeting the bids were rejected and the city directed to rebid the project.

During a special meeting July 6 the airport board decided to take a different approach to bidding the project and separated the project into a base bid for the barebones building plus four options.

Option one adds two heaters to the hangar, option two adds brick on the south side of the building, option three, adds brick on the west side of the building and option four adds the outside drain.

However, the board does not expect the available money to cover more than the basic building, plus the first two options.

Because this project is being paid for with a Community Development Block Grant, the alternatives must be bid in the order they are listed, Mark Mitchell, project manager, said.

The brickwork on the building and the drain across the front of the building were what ran the bids above the estimates, Randy Marti, who is overseeing the airport project for the city, told the airport board during a special meeting Friday.

"Monte (Curtis) talked to us and the architect on the phone and we decided to bid the project with several options," Marti said.

Curtis is the current airport board chairman.

"Then we'll find out where the money falls," he said.

Among the items the board decided to eliminate from the specifications were, the flag pole and no floor drain in the hangar.

City crews are doing the concrete work on the approach to the hangar and they can install the drains, Mitchell said.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires that the approach to the hangar must be almost flat, so there must be a drain in front of the hangar to keep water from running into the hangar, he said.

Mitchell said that instead of a floor drain, the floor in the hangar can have a slight grade from the back to the front to let water run out.

"It would be nice to have, but if we can't afford it, we can't," Scott Buerge, airport board vice chairman, said.

To save money on the project, Mitchell said that in addition to doing the approach to the hangar, city workers were going to remove the existing beacon, move the septic tank and do any needed landscaping.

Mitchell told the board that the terminal project would be advertised for bid on July 9, with the bid opening at 4 p.m., July 27, and they would probably have an airport board meeting at 5:15 that same day to make a recommendation to the city council for a contractor.

Mitchell told the board that work on the runway renovation is progressing and the contractor tentatively plans to start pouring concrete July 12.