Flying High

Colorado's Mountain Airports Expanding to Keep Up with Seasonal Growth

Some of Colorado's busiest mountain airports are getting new facilities, safety improvements and much-needed paving upgrades this year.

Eagle County

The Eagle County Airport - the closest one to the booming Vail Valley - has recently seen a big increase in air traffic. During the winter months, United, Delta, American, Continental and Northwest Airlines all provide non-stop jet service between Eagle and 12 major cities.

American introduced daily non-stop flights between Dallas-Ft. Worth and Eagle this past summer, connecting it with 27 airports, including the one in Zurich, Switzerland.
According to the airport authority, more than 146,642 flights have left the Eagle airport so far this year.

advertisement

However, one of the most important pieces of the airport's infrastructure - the control tower - was in need of a major upgrade before bigger jets and more air traffic could be brought into Eagle.

To position the airport for growth and respond to market demand, the Eagle County Commissioners and Shaw Construction LLC broke ground on April 22, 2003 on a new control tower, which was completed this November.

The old airport tower stood only 43 ft tall while the new tower is 115 ft tall, and as high as 130 ft, including systems installed on the roof. The new tower sits on a 31-ft by 31-ft, three-and-a-half ft thick concrete foundation. All of the precast for the tower was erected in nine days, from foundation up to the cab - or control room - at the top.

Shaw Construction Project Manager Dave Hall said that the high winds in the area - sometimes as stiff as 30-35 knots - were a major concern during precast erection, especially in the spring when most of the concrete work was done.

Stresscon Corp. was the precast contractor, and "they did a great job," Hall said. "The county hadn't done much in the way of detailed budgeting on the project before they hired us, and working with Stresscon, we saved them about 12 percent on the job through value-engineering."

The tower has one elevator that goes up to the eighth floor; then internal stairs wind up another one-and-a-half levels to the cab. All of the computer systems to run tower flight control functions were placed between the eighth level and the cab, with two levels of offices below that for future use by FAA officials.

According to Hall, construction on the new tower took only about six months, with the project expected to finish three weeks early. "People thought we were nuts even to attempt to build this tower in that kind of time frame," Hall said. "Even the designer, who does control towers all over the country, said they normally take at least seven to eight months to complete."

Shaw's Division Manager Clark Atkinson, who is also a pilot, said that he has been flying into the Eagle airport for more than 11 years, before much infrastructure was in place there. Then in 1996, Shaw Construction completed the Eagle airport terminal building. It used to be a metal shed, and the previous tower was "a series of shipping containers welded together with another metal shed on the top," Atkinson said. The airport doubled the size of its terminal in 2002, adding another 33,000 sq ft.

"This airport has averaged about 20 percent air traffic growth per year, so you can see why these infrastructure upgrades - and especially the tower - were necessary. During the busy season, Eagle is the number two airport in Colorado - after DIA," Atkinson said. "You can land 757s in Eagle, but not in Aspen." The Eagle airport already has a 10,000-ft runway, also longer than the one in Aspen, he said.

The new tower was built with no money from the federal government, and is not yet an FAA-controlled flight tower, but the airport is in the process of negotiating a lease with the FAA, which is inspecting the tower to establish it as an FAA-controlled facility. The radar system to meet those standards is already in place, according to Atkinson.

The contract completion date for the Eagle airport tower was Nov. 14, but Shaw Construction turned it over to the county three weeks early, taking only four-and-a-half months to build it.

The tower was designed by W.E. Payne & Associates of Denver, which specializes in aviation work.

Aspen-Pitkin County

At the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport - seasonally, the third busiest airport in Colorado - better traffic flow and FAA safety standards will be achieved by relocating the major taxiway 100 ft east of the main runway, according to Carter & Burgess Senior Project Manager J.D. Ingram, PE.

Carter & Burgess is providing the engineering design and project oversight.

The taxiway, which is currently 221 ft long, will also grow to 320 ft in a $6 million paving and facilities expansion project. Kiewit Western is the paving contractor on the first of the project's six segments, under way now, with the second segment up for bid next spring.

The Aspen airport project also includes improved rescue, firefighting and emergency response facilities, plus additional equipment storage, Ingram said.

Gunnison County

In Gunnison, the east end of the airport's main runway will be extended by 500 ft to compensate for its reduced length on the west end. Gold Basin Road and the nearby river have confined the expansion of the runway to the west, putting it into an FAA non-standard status.

The $8.6 million asphalt paving project, designed by Carter & Burgess and contracted to Grand Junction's United Co., will allow the runway to meet FAA standards and provide for pavement rehabilitation. The project will strip away a layer of failed pavement, replacing it with a new layer.

Construction starts next April, with the airport closing for two-and-a-half months from May 2004 to mid-July, but it will remain open for most of the work after that. Air traffic for Gunnison will be re-routed through Montrose during the closure.

According to Carter & Burgess Sr. Project Manager Jim Fluhr, his firm is providing all of the construction management services and engineering design on the project. The regrading and drainage components were done by Sema Construction last year, and United Co. is already onsite crushing material.

The Gunnison airport will also receive a new high-intensity runway lighting system when the project is complete.

Upcoming or ongoing projects at other mountain airports include paving work at Front Range, Montrose, Pagosa Springs and Steamboat Springs.

Click here for more Features >>