Rome, as everyone knows, wasn’t built in a day.
It took approximately 20 years to construct the Great Wall of China and 10 years to build the Panama Canal.
In comparison, constructing the new control tower at Vance Air Force Base has not taken any time at all, though it doesn’t seem that way to those involved.
“It has taken longer to build the tower than it did to originally build Vance,” said Mike Cooper, city of Enid military liaison.
The $10.7 million appropriation for the Vance tower project was inserted by Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., into the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act passed by Congress in 2009. The tower was originally scheduled to be completed in May of 2012, but ground wasn’t even broken on the project until later that summer. Then the completion date was pushed back to early 2013, then to July of that same year. Then the projected opening was delayed to February 2014, then to July. In fact, in late 2013, then-wing commander Col. Darren James guaranteed that the new tower would open in 2014.
“I can tell you that, yes, in 2014, it will be open,” James said at the time.
It wasn’t of course, and the new projected opening was bumped to the spring of this year. Today the new tower looms 32 feet over the old one in the sky adjacent to the Vance flightline, but still has yet to open. It is hoped operations will begin in the new tower before 2015 ends, but guarantees are no longer being made. According to the latest military construction report issued by the office of the deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, the completion date is listed as Jan. 25.
The project’s lead contractor, California-based Gilbane Federal, finished its work and turned the tower over to the Air Force in September. Now, the finishing touches are being wrapped up by members of the 85th Engineering Installation Squadron from Keesler AFB, Miss., who are hooking up the equipment that will aid Vance’s mission of training not only future military pilots, but air traffic controllers, as well. Once the new tower becomes operational, Vance personnel will have 60 days to move all equipment and furnishings out of the old tower before it is demolished.
Charlie Thurman, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers resident engineer, who has been involved with the project since the beginning, said he heaved a “big sigh of relief when we actually turned the tower over to the Air Force. That was a big day and a long time coming.”
Reasons for the delay are many and varied, said Cooper.
“Anything that could go wrong did go wrong,” he said.
The initial design for the tower had to be redone because it was discovered the elevator and stairwell would not accommodate medical personnel and a gurney in case of an emergency. The elevator and stairwell had to be large enough that a victim could be safely transported from the tower cab to the ground, and the initial design didn’t meet the government’s requirement.
“The contractor had to start over with the design,” said Thurman. “That’s what started the long process.”
“It was, no kidding, a show-stopper,” said Master Sgt. Patrick Colclasure, Vance’s chief controller. “They stopped everything. They were getting ready to break ground. They went back to the drawing board.”
That, according to another source with the Corps of Engineers, caused the Vance tower to lose its “place in line,” with the firm in Tulsa that manufactures the pre-cast concrete pieces that make up much of the tower. A parking garage project in Stillwater moved ahead of it, further delaying the project.
There were other issues as well, Cooper said. There were problems with the fire suppression system’s pressurization in the stairwell, which delayed construction for about a year according to Colclasure. The system is designed to give controllers a two-hour window in which to escape in case of a fire.
“It’s all state of the art stuff and they needed to get it right, and they did,” he said, “and that’s what took the longest.”
Then the newly installed glass in the tower’s cab failed and had to be removed and replaced.
“Every phase had an issue,” said Cooper.
The Army Corps of Engineers represented the Air Force and the government throughout the construction, Thurman said. The Corps hired the contractor and oversaw the project.
“We strive to obtain a quality product for a warfighter,” Thurman said. “It took the contractor an inordinately long time to achieve that.”
Thurman said “We expect a quality product from our contractor and sometimes they have to redo a few things,” but then singled out Gilbane Federal for its “inability to timely progress the work. There were periods of time when they should have had people out on the job working and those people just weren’t working. From our perspective, the contractor just did not timely progress the work.”
Wesley Cotter, director of corporate communications for Gilbane Building Co., parent of Gilbane Federal, said the company would not directly respond to Thurman’s comments, but did point out the contractor completed its work and turned the tower over to the Air Force earlier this fall, and that while the project did not come in on time, it did come in under budget.
“While the schedule changed, the budget did not,” Cotter said.
Construction of the tower originally was projected to cost $9.2 million, but because of “a few modifications during the course of the project,” Thurman said, the total had risen to $9.6 million. The project’s total price tag will be higher than that, he said, because of other associated costs, and could approach the $10.7 million originally appropriated.
Colclasure was in on the original design build for the tower, then spent some time serving in Portugal before returning to Vance.
“I came back and it’s still having issues,” he said. “I’m glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I see the finish line, we’re almost there.”
Original article can be found here: http://newsok.com
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Captured on video too.
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