Taxiing to a halt: Johnson County Airport (KBYG), Buffalo, Wyoming

A proposed project at Johnson County Airport that would increase its capacity for the construction of private hangars has taxied to a halt thanks to prohibitively high bids from contractors.

The project entails building a new taxiway and apron — commonly referred to as a tarmac — northeast of the airport’s fixed-based operator building, an undeveloped site where several private hangars could be built with room to spare.

Interested plane owners would need to provide their own resources to build the hangars, but the apron and taxiway are necessary before any such construction could begin.

“This is basic infrastructure that needs to be in place for that to happen,” said Gerald Fink, airport board chairman.

The plans for the project came about when the board began receiving requests for more space for hangars to be built.

“This would provide people with a suitable location to build,” Fink said.

Fink said the project could pave the way for more economic activity in the county, with businesses possibly using the new hangar space and new hangars bringing in more tax revenue to the county.

The board of directors put out a call for bids earlier this year. On July 2, the board received bids from T&T Contracting Inc., Intermountain Construction & Materials and Mountain View Building Inc.

All the bids came in considerably higher than WWC Engineering’s initial estimate of $958,208.

“All the bids came in exceptionally high,” said Ben Weaver, WWC’s project manager.

T&T Contracting offered the lowest bid at about $1.73 million. Mountain View Building followed with about $1.77 million, and ICM offered the highest bid at about $1.91 million.

Those figures are all for a less expensive asphalt runway surface. WWC estimated a cost of about $1.16 million for a second option of a more expensive concrete surface, with Mountain View bidding $2.44 million, ICM bidding about $3.53 million and T&T bidding about $13.47 million.

At their regular meeting July 16, board members met with representatives from WWC to discuss their options, which were determined to be few.

First, the board officially rejected all bids. Board members then discussed putting the project off and rebidding it later in the fall for construction to begin in spring 2014. They hoped that bids might come in lower if they delayed the project and rebid it, but Weaver had doubts about that possibility.

“We don’t think the cost would drop much, even with rebids,” he said.

Even if new bids were to come in somewhat lower than the originals, board member Kirk Kavanaugh thought the board still couldn’t afford it.

“There’s no sense in rebidding when we know we don’t have the funds to do it,” he said.

Weaver brought up the possibility of rebidding the project to be completed in phases so the cost could be spread out.

“There may be some options as to breaking it down into parts,” he said, adding that Nick Potter, the board’s Federal Aviation Administration liaison in Denver, had suggested the idea.

Fink was less concerned with the schedule of the project as to how and from where they could secure the necessary funding.

“The issue isn’t what we’re going to do; it’s where the funding is coming from,” Fink said.

Overall, though, the board agreed that rebidding the project as one done in phases, breaking the overall cost down into more manageable parts, is a good idea.

“If we break it into sections, we can do what the board deems most important first and finish the rest at a later date when funds become available,” Potter said.

On Kavanaugh’s recommendation, the board decided to table the issue until the next meeting. Meanwhile, they will scramble to file for a grant from the FAA to help with the project by its Aug. 2 deadline.

Fink thinks the project will put Buffalo more firmly on the map for aviators.

“It would probably draw some planes to the airport that aren’t here now,” he said.

Source:   http://www.buffalobulletin.com