Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority’s Pangborn Project Costs Increase; Airport to Temporarily Close

Aug. 10—WENATCHEE — One of Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority's projects will affect fliers in and out of Pangborn Memorial Airport. It's also costing more than anticipated.

Construction on Taxiway A, or Alpha, will suspend flights starting at around 3 p.m. Aug. 20, after Horizon's last flight of the day, to around 7 a.m. Aug. 28. Taxiway A is used by commercial and private aircraft.

On Tuesday, port commissioners agreed to about $400,000 increase in the project, from $20.8 million to $21.2 million. A 5% contingency was included in the original project budget, but Stacie de Mestre, port economic development and capital projects director, said another 5% budget increase was since needed.

However, the port's out-of-pocket cost decreased from about $2.3 million to $1.6 million because the FAA will reimburse the port 90% and the Washington State Department of Transportation came in with a $600,000 aviation grant, she said.

Port CEO Jim Kuntz noted the port usually earmarks a 10% contingency line item, but since the project was costly, opted for 5% instead.

On June 13, the port reported about $600,000 of the project contingency was committed to:

A grant award taking six-plus months, which added $475,000 to the cost. Selland Construction agreed to hold its bid amount for those months, even though most bids are good for a few months. Port leaders said they appreciated Selland holding the bid, as it was the lowest. The delay also stretched over the state Department of Labor & Industries' wage increases in January.

* Engineering consultant Ardurra's cost to track the wage rate increase.

* Relocation of the FAA communications line, as the location was unknown during design.

* Grading changes at the warmup apron.

On July 19, another $385,000 was added to the cost.

Some of the increases were due to change requirements from the initial Federal Aviation Administration inspection in early 2022. However, the FAA said it would pay 90% of those costs.

One of those changes was FAA signage requirements from its first inspection of the taxiway.

"We had a new inspector," said Trent Moyers, port director of airports. "Different inspectors are more, I don't know, some are more involved with art, some are involved with construction, some focus on signage... When we did this design and it went out and we reviewed our planning specifications, the previous inspector never called out any concern to our site."

After the project went to bid, the new inspector looked at the plan and picked parts to change, Moyers said.

For instance, part of the project includes widening the taxiway from 50 feet to 75 feet to meet FAA design standards for the Bombardier DH8 Q400 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air. In January, the airline switched to using Embraer 175 jets, which requires different signage, Moyers said the inspector told him.

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