CANYON CITY Bend-based Taylor Northwest LLC is the apparent low bidder for the Grant County Regional Airports runway reconstruction job.

The Grant County Court opened bids for the project Wednesday, June 19. The submissions will be reviewed for bid compliance and certification, and forwarded to the FAA for its recommendation before final approval by the Court.

Taylor was one of five contractors to bid on the project, which includes rehab of Runway 9-27 and a smaller project, the overlay of Taxiway A-3.

Taylors bid was just over $1.43 million for the two jobs combined. The other bids were: High Desert Aggregate and Paving of Redmond, $1.544 million; Tidewater Contractors of John Day, $1.655 million; JAL Construction Inc. of Bend, $1.918 million; and Knife River of Bend, $2.019 million.

County officials were pleased to see the number of bids, as well as competitive pricing. The engineers estimate for the project came to $1.819 million.

Airport manager Patrick Bentz said the goal is to start construction July 8 and complete the work by the end of September. Asked if the work would be an obstacle for wildland fire air operations, he said the single-engine air tanker (SEAT) and spotter planes assigned to fires in this region generally use the airports other runway, which will be open.