The prestigious 2020 Heavy Civil Under $35 Million Constructor Award was presented to Granite Construction Company for their work on the Sacramento International Airport Runway 16R-34L Rehabilitation project. Runway 16R-34L is one of two parallel runways at Sacramento International Airport. This runway, originally constructed in 1967, accommodates half of the airport’s 138,000 annual flights. Awarded the contract to rehabilitate the runway, Granite Construction employed several innovative techniques to get the job done quickly and safely.
The project entailed the complete demolition and reconstruction of the existing runway and its electrical systems. Although the existing runway was asphalt concrete, the new runway was designed using Portland cement concrete to increase the life span and durability of the pavement. However, this also increased schedule challenges due to long cure times.
Granite accelerated construction to maximize a complete shutdown of Runway 16R-34L from April to October of 2019, which required all flights to be consolidated to a single open runway. The team achieved all project milestones through careful, up-front planning and scheduling and strong coordination with all parties.
Granite self-performed all concrete batching and paving, delivering an incredibly smooth finished runway. Crews worked six to seven days a week, 10-12 hours per day throughout the project to meet the deadline, completing 105,400 worker hours with zero injuries. Despite scope growth in excess of $4 million, the runway was opened on the originally scheduled date.
