Vernal,UT

The Vernal Regional Airport (VEL) runway relocation project was required to upgrade the runway to C-II compliance with safety area standards and to increase runway length. The location of the new runway was selected so that the existing runway could be used along with nighttime construction allowing only minimal interruptions to commercial service traffic.

Our team performed the land acquisition for the relocated runway. We assembled the land acquisition team including appraisers, review appraisers, outside legal counsel, county surveyor, land acquisition specialists, environmental specialists, county attorney, county commissioners, and Vernal City. The land acquisition included the purchase of 100 plus acres, including seven different parcels and four different landowners.  Shortly after the land acquisition project began, our team began the master design for the Runway Relocation project, including replacement of the parallel taxiway.  This process included several meetings with the FAA Flight Procedures Division on the new approaches and existing and future airfield NAVAIDs at the airport. 

This project moved the main runway 275 feet west and built a new parallel taxiway.  It also included reconstruction of all lighting and navigational aids, relocation of the ASOS weather station, drainage facilities, and irrigation facilities.  Municipal water and sewer were relocated to accommodate construction of the parallel taxiway on newly acquired property. 

Our team managed all grants and construction contracts for this project. In order to expedite the overall schedule, we bid each phase while still constructing the previous phase, resulting in continuous and overlapping construction projects, while keeping the existing runway open for operations. This multi-year, multi-phase project cost approximately $33 million and was finished more than six months ahead of schedule.