Yampa Valley Regional Airport will complete its first runway maintenance project in seven years this summer.

The project comes with a price tag exceeding $1 million and is slated to take place sometime between mid-July and the end of August. The improvements will not alter the airport’s summer flight schedule.

The airport’s $1.3 million project to seal coat and repaint the runway will take 10-14 days to complete. All maintenance will happen between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., specifically so the project will not alter the airport’s flight schedule.

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At the Tuesday, April 4, Routt County commissioners meeting, Yampa Valley Regional Airport Manager Kevin Booth notified commissioners of a $200,000 expenditure in the project’s budget due to a recent escalation of oil prices.

Bidding for the project opened Thursday, March 30, and Booth and the project’s engineering consultant, Mead & Hunt, have already begun evaluating applications. Booth told commissioners four bids have been placed and reviewed, and the prices so far have come in well below the engineer’s assessment. Booth noted one bid came in a full 33% below. 

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Currently, the bill is set to be split three ways between the Federal Aviation Administration (90%), Colorado Department of Transportation (5%) and Yampa Valley Regional Airport (5%).

Booth said maintenance crews will be instructed not to start their work until the last flight of the day has landed at the airport.

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Booth also indicated that while the project should not take any longer than 10 days, a four-day buffer was added to accommodate any delays. Temperatures and the seal coat put on the runway the night before must be checked in the morning for dryness. 

The last runway maintenance project was in June 2015 and involved a mill and overlay project for the runway, in addition to adding 25-foot-wide paved shoulders to each side of the runway. 

At the time, the project came in 30.5% over budget, costing $4 million more than planned. This project was more expansive than the current project and involved larger scale changes.