April 09--The Jamestown Regional Airport Authority approved plans and specs for an eight-bay T-hangar building and a crack sealing and repainting project on the asphalt at the airport.
At a special meeting Tuesday night, board members in attendance -- Jim Boyd, Jeff Wilhelm, Keith Veil, Brent Harris and Matthew Leitner -- voted unanimously to approve the plans put forth by Steve Aldinger, project engineer for Interstate Engineering.
At the last meeting, the board rejected all seven bids it received for building a nine-bay hangar. The bids ranged from $989,000 to $1.4 million, while the engineer's estimated cost of the project was $917,000.
Aldinger said bids will be advertised for both projects on Friday. A pre-bid meeting for contractors to ask questions on the bids will be held April 23 and the bids will be opened and contracts awarded on May 2.
Aldinger said he was not sure what the final cost of the hangar would be, but the crack sealing and repainting is estimated at $247,000, with the board expecting a 90 percent reimbursement from the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission after the NDAC meets to award grants on May 7.
"We'll be begging them for money and getting as much as we can," Aldinger said.
Aldinger said some reconfigurations in the plans for the hangar helped keep the price down. The hangar will not be heated so mechanical work will not be necessary, and the engineer learned the hangar does not need to be equipped for fire suppression after further review of the fire code.
"We got it (the price) down quite a bit," Aldinger said. "We got rid of a lot of the electrical work; we're just going to have one overhead incandescent light in each bay.
"We're only going to have one four-bang outlet box inside the door... The height of it came down a little bit because we're not doing the hydraulic doors, so it's a little bit shorter building."
Veil said cutting back on the costs of the building will not affect its effectiveness at the airport.
"We haven't cheapened the building. We've made it a more marketable facility," Veil said.
The new T-hangar would have eight T-shaped bays and one 403-square-foot storage room. Seven of the bays will be 1,079 square feet and one bay will be 1,605 square feet because the shape of the bays leaves an extra 526 square feet of floor space at the end of the building. Each bay will have its own 42-foot door.
"This size is the most popular size of hangar that's being built at airports," Veil said. "The floor plan is a really big, popular (plan)."
Veil said at least one pilot is already interested in renting a bay at the hangar.
The completion date is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 1, and a $900-a-day penalty will be assessed to the contractor for going past the completion date.
The asphalt crack sealing and repainting is expected to begin on June 1 be done in 30 working days with an $800-a-day penalty assessed to the contractor for going past the completion date. Aldinger said it can be done in two phases and without shutting down the airport.
"We're going to close the main runway and do that one, then we'll open up that one, close the cross runway and do that one," Aldinger said. "You're just sealing cracks and then we go over and repaint everything on the airfield ... The airport will never be shut down, the whole thing, just certain portions of the airport at certain times. But we will always make sure the airline can get in."
Sun reporter David Luessen can be reached at 701-952-8455 or by email at [email protected]
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