The terminal building's passenger elevator providing access to the top floor of the Big Bear City Airport terminal building is not on the first stage of repairs approved by the Airport District board. Passenger and freight elevator repairs are included in the second stage of a four-stage repair program but have yet to be approved.
For months, Big Bear Airport District’s board of directors has debated whether to repair the airport’s existing terminal building or tear it down and build a new one.
More recently, it became clearer that board members favored doing the repairs over a replacement. They officially reached a consensus to make the improvements at the Nov. 12 meeting, approving an initial $30,000 worth of repairs. The entire project to fully rehabilitate the building will likely run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The initial repairs approved Nov. 12 were those identified in a report by airport contractor Partner Engineering and Science Inc. as the most pressing that constituted immediate safety issues. One suggested item from Partner’s list, the installation of a seismic gas valve, was not included among those the board approved.
Airport General Manager Dustin Leno said that airport staff consulted with Southwest Gas representatives who told them the seismic valve, which is not technically required, would likely lead to frequent false alarms, shutting off the airport’s gas system.
“It is not required to have, and they’re problematic to have, so we went ahead and just checked that one off,” airport staff member Tom Hoover told the board.
The repairs the board approved were estimated to cost $22,500 based on the Partner report, although the board approved a not-to-exceed amount of $30,000. Leno cautioned that more reliable cost estimates based on prevailing wages would be necessary, and numbers in the terminal building repair budget could change—in some cases drastically.
For example, an estimate of the cost to replace the building’s sprinkler system—which has not been approved—is listed in agenda packet as the single most expensive item of the rehabilitation project at $250,000.
“That number, the $250,000, that wasn’t necessarily a Partner number,” Leno said. “That was a number that had been thrown around by some people about basically tearing out all the pipes and putting a brand new system in.”
A more realistic estimate of the cost of the necessary repairs to the sprinkler system would be closer to $25,000, Leno said.
“I’m very pleased to see that the cost is going in the right direction,” board member Gary Steube said of the revised sprinkler system estimate. “Divided by 10. That’s good.”
Steube added that he wanted to make sure the repairs were done comprehensively so that more problems wouldn’t come up later.
“In addition to the safety items, if we look at the Partner report, we were told about other items that if we don’t take care of could cause damage to the building that would cost more in the future,” said board member Joseph Kelly.
Fixing the terminal building roof and sprinkler system should be high priority items, Kelly said, and some of that work could be done in the winter.
Board president Julie Smith said that while she agreed with Kelly that those items were important, some of the other work might alter plans for fixing the roof, and should be done beforehand. Leno said it was probably too late in the year to try to replace the roof.
The board approved the first round of repairs 4-0, with a budget not to exceed $30,000, to be incorporated into the airport’s Capital Improvement Plan. Board member Steve Castillo was not at the meeting.
- Source: http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net
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