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Work on $12.5 million airport terminal starts in 2009, completed in 2010
By Carole Cloudwalker
This document was published online on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Construction on the new $12.5 million passenger terminal at Yellowstone Regional Airport will start a year earlier than planned.
Under the new schedule, work on the midfield terminal will start in winter 2009 and be completed by Dec. 1, 2010.
Tim Wick of Gillette, who works with Morrison Maierle, the engineering firm hired to advise the YRA board, said Nov. 6 that state and federal funding has become available sooner than anticipated, bumping terminal construction forward one year.
Wick said he learned about the need for the earlier building schedule this fall.
“We weren't looking at building (the terminal) until 2010,” Wick told the board in an update session at the end of the meeting. “Now we're looking at 2009.”
Wick said the earlier date is related to additional funds in the coffers of the state and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this year.
One snag in bumping the project forward, Wick said, is that funding allocation usually is planned two years in advance, and YRA will “lose” about $1.4 million by starting earlier than the allocated money is available.
But that money will be provided later, as scheduled, he said.
That means the airport board could either borrow the money for the interim period, obtain a letter of credit that would be acceptable to a contractor, seek grant funds or find some other way to bridge the one-year gap.
Toward that end, the board agreed to apply for a $1.5 million State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) grant that would help with the potential temporary funding shortfall.
During the YRA meeting, airport manager Bob Hooper reported the temporary shortfall is a “result of the FAA decreasing the amount of discretionary funding and annual entitlement funds, along with uncommitted funds from the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission.”
Hooper recommended the board approve the SLIB grant application for submission in time for the next SLIB meeting Dec. 11. Approval came during the Nov. 6 meeting.
Work remaining to be done, in addition to building the terminal itself, includes building and paving entry roads to the terminal area, a parking lot, an aircraft ramp and perimeter fencing, Hooper said.
Wick said the estimated time frame for remaining work includes:
€Advertising for bids on the access road in January and starting construction in mid-March, with completion by mid-June.
€Advertising for bids on the aircraft ramp in March, starting work in May and completing the job in September 2009.
€Advertising for bids on the terminal itself in April, starting actual work in June and completing the job by Dec. 1, 2010.
€Advertising for bids on paving the access road and parking lot in mid-Februray 2010, starting work in June and completing the paving in August 2010.
Currently, YRA is busy building a water retention basin near the area where soccer fields are to be built.
In addition, the board is completing building a card-access security gate next to Spirit Mountain Aviation.
When the new terminal is completed, the board has discussed leasing space in the existing terminal as offices or to a fixed-base operator.
There currently are two FBOs, Spirit Mountain Aviation and Choice Aviation, headquartered at YRA. Both sell aviation fuel and offer charter planes and other services to the public.
(Carole Cloudwalker can be reached at carole@codyenterprise.com.)
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