Ft. Smith Regional Airport Runway 7/25 Rehabilitation

Project OverviewDescripción del proyecto

The combined efforts of the Emery Sapp & Sons' (ESS) Asphalt and Heavy Highway operations kept this project flying safely through the critical schedule, arriving at each destination early. For ESS, synergism equaled success. When the Fort Smith Airport Commission first released the project for bid, no contractor would take the risk due to the compressed schedule. When the owner released the project for bid again, extending the runway closure to 15 calendar days, our estimating team identified this as a perfect project for ESS. Pulling resources together from our Asphalt and Heavy Highway teams gave us the ability to create a critical-path schedule, and beat that schedule with innovative ideas during both the preconstruction and construction process.

The project itself consisted of the rehabilitation of runway 7/25 which was 8,500 feet long and 150 feet wide, and was bid to be constructed in 4 main phases with each phase having 2 to 4 sub-phases. To limit disruption to airport traffic, each phase had a very aggressive schedule. Combining crews from across our asphalt operations gave us the resources to run two cold milling machines side by side for asphalt removal, and run two asphalt pavers side by side for runway paving.

Phase 4 of the project began on October 3rd after a 30-day curing period of the newly paved runway. Crews performed final pavement grooving, striping and signage during nightly runway closures through November 30th.

Our collective operations collaborated closely with the owner to execute this project with synergism. Our crews demonstrated productive and quality work resulting in early completion of the schedule and the delivery of another successful and safe project we can be proud of.