The Cortez Municipal Airport is undergoing renovations while seeing an increase in traffic and planning for new development.
The city broke ground on the parking lot project on July 8, said Airport Director Jeremy Patton.
“We were reconstructing, and also redesigned the parking lot to make it more efficient,” Patton said. “We did a separate pickup and drop-off lane that is more efficient for people that are being picked up and dropped off.”
They are also rebuilding the main lot and the south pilot access road to the pilot access gate. The project will include new asphalt and “optimizing the design so it’s more efficient.”
The project is estimated to be done by mid-September.
“The parking lot was very old. The last major job on it was in the early ’90s, so it’s just been a Band-Aid fix over the years,” Patton said. “We’re trying to make it start fresh, and then we’ll be able to maintain a more modern parking lot from here on out.”
Patton shared that their runway rehabilitation for 2025 is 95% done.
“That’s basically a 4-inch mill and overlay of the entire runway to convert it into grooved asphalt,” Patton said, adding that they will be going out to bid on that project in October. Construction is expected to take place in August 2025.
“We are also adding about 4,000 square yards of apron expansion on the south apron, and at the same time, we’re going to bid those jobs tougher, and they’re basically going to go back to back in the fall of 2025 in construction,” Patton said.
They will be replacing all of the lighting from incandescent light bulbs to LED, as well as the vertical slope indicator that is “really outdated,” and a new control bolt for all electronics.
“Then we’ll do a nice fresh seal coat and repaint our markings,” Patton said.
The runway work will help with the slight slope of the runway, but Patton shared that it is normal for runways to have a slope to them, as topography varies per location.
“We’re going to try to address what we call a break-over,” Patton said. There’s a break-over in the runway that’s kind of a hump, and the idea is to try to alleviate some of that.”
Patton shared that the renovations are needed to “facilitate our increasing operations,” saying that air traffic is increasing, and there are many charter jets utilizing the airport. There has also even been “a lot of interest” in building hangars at the airport. Two private hangars are set to be built next year.
“We get charter jets in and out of here that are heavier than the airlines, and they have a higher impact on our runway. It’s way past its life span,” Patton said. “With the apron expansion, we can start adding more hangars down the south side of the airport.”
Renovations also include some “previously ignored items” like the airport’s ADA compliance.
“We had a lot of sidewalks that weren’t ADA, so we’re rebuilding the main entrance into the terminal, new sidewalks, new curb and gutter, new ADA parking,” Patton said.
They are also changing the landscaping at the airport to be zeroscape, which is more suited to the desert to help preserve water and less maintenance to deal with.
Patton emphasized that the current renovations are taking place for the future development of the airport.
“All the work is basically facilitating future development, and we’re already seeing an increase in demand. We’re seeing an increase in traffic,” Patton said. “There’s more and more operations in and out of the airport, as well as the commercial traveling public. We’re getting more out of Utah, East Utah, Farmington and we’re actually taking a lot of people from Durango because it’s a cheaper and quicker option to get in and out of the airport.”
