Durant Airport Authority awards $202,122 bid to J. Lee Enterprises for Taxiway A1 repair

The Durant Airport Authority on a unanimous vote awarded a bid and approved a contract to J. Lee Enterprises LLC for repair of Taxiway A1 pavement in the total amount of $202,122.

Staff explained the repair follows an aircraft incident last year in which a plane caught fire and damaged part of the taxiway; authority staff said insurance will cover engineering and repairs. “There was a plane that landed because it was on fire and when it landed, it went ahead and burned on up and as it was burning up, it burned up out part of our taxiway as well,” said Mr. Mitchell of KSA, summarizing the incident and repair need.

The authority received two bids; the awarded bid was about $160,000 less than the other bid, and authority staff said the selected contractor is based in Edmond, Oklahoma. Mitchell said officials plan to phase the taxiway repair around March 17 and coordinate the work with planned airport marking improvements to minimize runway downtime. “We’re gonna try to phase this project in the March around the seventeenth,” Mitchell said.

The authority recorded unanimous roll-call votes approving the bid award and then the contract that corresponds to the award. The clerk recorded votes of Trustee Miller (yes), Trustee Scheer (yes), Trustee Fuller (yes), Vice Chairman Similescu (yes) and Chairman Tucker (yes).

Authority members confirmed the city attorney had reviewed and approved the contract form before the vote. No public opposition or additional conditions were recorded at the meeting; staff said the coordination between contractors should limit airport downtime.