Arnold Palmer airport access road bid comes in $500K less than expected
Construction of a new access road to connect Arnold Palmer Regional Airport with Route 981 will cost half a million dollars less than anticipated, according to Scott Kunselman of GAI Consultants, engineer for the Westmoreland County Airport Authority.
The authority Tuesday awarded the road construction to A. Liberoni, Inc. of Plum, which submitted a low bid of $860,247.19.
“We were very surprised,” Kunselman said of the figure.
The award is contingent upon review by the state Bureau of Aviation. Kunselman said a state grant will pay 70 percent of the project cost, with the authority covering the remainder.
The access road for the Unity airport will be shifted about 200 yards to the north of its current location to connect with a circular intersection, or roundabout, that PennDOT is constructing. The roundabout will allow motorists to navigate between Route 981, the airport and a new connector to Charles Houck Road while replacing a dog-legged intersection where Route 981 and Charles Houck meet Gravel Hill Road.
Derry Construction Company submitted low bids for runway rehabilitation projects at the authority's Arnold Palmer and Rostraver airports.
Kunselman said the contractor's bid of just over $2.5 million for the Unity runway was about $50,000 below the estimated cost while its $793,480 proposal for the Rostraver runway was $10,000 lower than expected.
The work includes milling, paving and repairing cracks along the length of each of the two runways. The contractor will mill about an inch from the surface of the runway and will replace it with 3 inches of fresh pavement, Kunselman explained.
No action was taken on the runway bids. The authority has applied for federal grants to cover 90 percent of the cost, with state funding expected to pick up another 5 percent, Kunselman said.
Authority Executive Director Gabe Monzo said air traffic at Arnold Palmer Regional will be shut down for up to nine days, likely in mid-September, to allow for the runway rehab. “That's two days extra we have in there that we're leaving for (inclement) weather,” Monzo said.
He noted Spirit Airlines, the main carrier serving the Unity airport, has no flights scheduled there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in September.
Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6622, jhimler@tribweb.com or via Twitter @jhimler_news.
