Construction on the second phase of the Durango-La Plata County Airport’s terminal expansion won’t start until next summer, but projected project costs already appear higher than expected.
Durango Mayor Melissa Youssef, a liaison between City Council and the city’s Airport Commission, said during Tuesday’s council meeting that current cost estimates for Phase 1B, which includes building out baggage claim, TSA screening and post-TSA concession areas, came in $3 million above what DRO initially budgeted for.
The total cost of the second construction phase will be about $29 million, instead of the previously anticipated cost of $26 million.
But DRO Aviation Director Tony Vicari isn’t too concerned.
Vicari said he and his team have been working away in recent weeks to identify nonessential design features that could be set aside in case the $3 million price hike for construction turns out to be accurate.
Design features such as an updated canopy above the entrance, the renovation of administrative offices, airline break rooms and kitchens, which aren’t vital to the overall terminal expansion, have been removed from the base Phase 1B design. If it turns out construction won’t be as expensive as predicted and the project budget allows for it, the airport will again include those features.
“We’re able to do that with a number of areas across the board, which kind of gives us some flexibility. And we also just made some design decisions to reduce some of the complexity of the design,” he said.
The original design for the exterior canopy was more “architecturally complicated” and “substantially” drove up project costs, Vicari said. Removing it from the base design saves the airport close to $3.25 million.
The airport made “close to several dozen small changes” that have added up to significant savings — nearly $4 million in cost reductions.
Still, the airport is about $2.5 million over its initial budget for the second phase of construction.
“We are still tracking a little bit high on our overall costs as we get closer to final costs in February-March,” Vicari said. “But right now … We’re comfortable moving forward. We feel like we’ve gotten close enough to that number to be able to push forward through final costs.”
The causes behind the estimated cost increase are due to continually rising costs of materials and supplies, and a lack of participation by many subcontractors in providing cost estimates for various aspects of the project, he said.
Vicari also said higher construction costs in many ways have “sort of become a bit of an expectation.”
“At first, this definitely brought me pause and our team pause, knowing that we were a fair bit over on this initial pass,” he said.
DRO isn’t looking to award bids to subcontractors until the final design of the Phase 1B terminal extension is completed, he said, so it makes sense why subcontractors aren’t too eager to engage yet.
Nunn Construction, hired as general contractor by the airport, performs cost estimating services for DRO as it works through the terminal expansion’s design, Vicari said. That process involves looking at real-time market costs, which could rise or fall by the time the airport is ready to put construction out to bid.
“There’s nothing contractually obligated about that number (being $3 million over budget),” he said. “We’re not locked into that number in any kind of way. But it gives us a really good temperature of where we’re at — about the 60% design level — for this project. About where costs are heading in the real world in terms of subcontractor costs all the way down.”
Vicari said the main message he wants the public to hear is no matter what construction costs end up being, the airport is funding the terminal expansion with its own revenues and grant opportunities — not with tax dollars.
“This project is one that’s being executed through airport revenues and available grant funding streams,” he said. “ … Despite the fact that we are facing a few cost challenges, that funding strategy is completely unchanged … We have not and do not have any intention of seeking local taxpayer funding. That’s never been part of the funding strategy.”
The full airport expansion is expected to be completed in summer 2026. It was projected to cost $36 million in total and will add about 24,000 square feet to the 40,000-square-foot building, which is roughly a 60% increase in size.
cburney@durangoherald.com
