A Boise firm, Western Construction, has tentatively been awarded the contract to rebuild Friedman Memorial Airport's runway based on the lowest bid of $4,549,394.
The only bid from a local company, Valley Paving, came in much higher at $7,572,273.
Friedman's airport authority accepted the bid and the recommendations of David Mitchell, a project engineer with engineering consultant Toothman-Orton, who called Western Construction's work excellent.
Work is scheduled to begin April 24 and continue for a month. The airport will be closed to all air traffic during that time.
Friedman's runway has been showing signs of wear and tear but has remained operational with patching. Moisture has begun to erode the runway's subsurface as well. Most of the multi layers of materials in the runway are some 20 years old.
Much of the subsurface material will be milled and ground and used again, although new gravel will also be bought.
In other airport authority matters:
- The authority voted to return to its customary regular monthly meeting schedule on the first Tuesday of the month, beginning April 3. For the past several months, it had met on the second Wednesday of each month.
- Airport Manager Rick Baird said if Frontier Airlines begins service from Denver to Friedman with Bombardier Q400 aircraft, the airport must solve the ticklish problem of handling Horizon Air's Q400s arriving or departing simultaneously. The Federal Aviation Administration has declared Friedman out of compliance with standards for the larger aircraft, thus requiring all traffic to stop when a Q400 is arriving or departing because of its size and the closeness of runway and taxiway. Carol Waller, executive director of the Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau, also told the board that $200,000 in the bank that could be used toward a minimum revenue guarantee to underwrite Frontier's possible losses if service is inaugurated.
