Construction progress of the runway.
On Thursday August 16th, we met with the construction team and reviewed the current project timelines. Due to the recent excessive rain fall, the August 23rd deadline is going to be unfortunately missed.
We have the option of opening on September 1st, but this would leave us with only 4202 feet due to a 1000-foot displacement on the runway 5 end due to paving to be completed.
There would be only be daytime VFR operations due to no airport lighting. More importantly we would have an asphalt joint at the 1000 feet mark on runway 5, due to this soft opening. Therefore, we decided to allow the asphalt pavers to pave the whole length of 5202 feet of the runway.
With this decision, the new opening date will be Friday September 7th pending no major weather events.
On September 7th, the goal is to have 5200 feet of the original length with a new asphalt surface. GPS 5 & 23 will be available, however the runway lighting crew may still have some work left to do on the taxiway lights. We will know more on the lighting progress as we get closer to the new opening date.
Week nine activity progress (August 23rd)
- A continuation of installing aggregate rock base of 2000 tons per day to the RWY 5 end
- As of today (August 17th) they have +/-1000 feet to go.
- A “proof roll” of asphalt will be put down on Saturday August 18th. (Testing purposes)
- The asphalt paving crew will begin paving on Monday August 20th and will remain onsite until the whole runway is paved. This will consist of laying 15,123 tons of surface asphalt.
- Continuing the Installation of electrical runway lighting.
The actual extension of runway 23 is scheduled to begin on October 1st and the whole project is planned to be completed by December 1st.
The construction team will continue to work 7 days a week.
Below are some photos taken on Friday August 17th at 11.30 am.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thank you
Terry Connorton
Airport Director
Spartanburg Memorial Airport
864-580-5004 office
864-525-3727 cell
tconnorton@cityofspartanburg.org www.cityofspartanburg.org/airport
