LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, moved a step closer to a $9.1 million plan to upgrade its utility and lighting systems, which proponents say will save the state’s largest airport hundreds of thousands of dollars now and, at the same time, prepare the terminal to handle additional capacity in the future.
“It sounds like a lot of money,” said Dr. Carl Johnson, a commission member. “It is. But I feel like we’re playing catch-up on something that is long overdue.”
The proposal won a recommendation Tuesday from a committee of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which governs the airport. The full commission will consider the proposal at its regular monthly meeting next week.
Utility costs at the airport’s terminal and parking deck now exceed $1.4 million annually. Electricity accounts for $955,000 of that total. Meanwhile, the systems providing power, heat, cooling and lighting to the terminal and parking deck are “at or near the end of their useful life,” according to a detailed audit assessing the airport’s energy consumption. The systems also aren’t large enough to handle current needs.
Energy Systems Group, a company with offices in St. Louis and Little Rock, worked with airport officials to develop a five-phase plan to upgrade the airport’s ener-gy systems. Once completed, the improvements will save the airport $653,099 a year in utility costs, according to the proposal.
“That is a 44 percent reduction in what you’re spending today, which is pretty significant,” Melanie Hayes, a company account executive, told the commission’s Lease Committee on Tuesday.
The company guarantees the savings, which means it will pay the difference if annual utility costs exceed the guaranteed cost. Utility costs typically are monitored quarterly to see whether the improvements are meeting the company guarantees, said Sterling Miller, a regional director for Energy Systems Group.
Assuming the commission approves the proposal, the first two phases would begin immediately.
The first phase involves replacing three transformers the airport owns and maintains with a larger transformer to be owned and maintained by Entergy Inc., which supplies electricity to the airport. It would be large enough to handle the installation of an in-line baggage system.
Other electrical upgrades also would be completed, and windows would be replaced in some office areas in this phase, which would cost $1.6 million but yield just $17,855 in utility savings a year.
The second phase, by contrast, would yield significantly more savings - $368,389 annually - at a cost of a little more than $3 million. In this phase, lighting systems would be upgraded in the main terminal, toll plaza, parking deck, a building leased to the Federal Aviation Administration and the airport’s two air cargo buildings. Lighting controls and daylight sensors also would be added. The phase also includes replacing one ofthe airport’s two chillers and other mechanical improvements.
Some of the costs would be paid with airport funds to be reimbursed through a portion of future federal grants, said Ron Mathieu, the airport’s executive director. The grants could come from the Transportation Security Administration or the FAA, among others, he said.
The next three phases would cost about $4.4 million and yield annual savings of $266,855. Those phases include new chilled water piping for the terminal concourse and rotunda; more improvements to the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and hot water and chilled water piping improvements to the ticketing and baggage area; water conservation measures throughout the airport; and the installation of generators that could allow the airport to operate ifEntergy ever asked the airport to temporarily cut back on its power use because of high demand, officials said.
Tom Schueck, the commission chairman, wanted more time to study the third phase, which included the piping improvements. That phase cost $2.1 million but yields less than $85,000 in annual savings, he noted. Mathieu said a plan to move forward with that phase and the other two remaining phases will be presented within three or four months.
Jim Dailey, a commission member who was a longtime Little Rock mayor, withdrew from any involvement in discussion or deliberations of the proposal, citing a previous business relationship with Energy Systems Group.
“There is nothing in this for me at all,” Dailey said after the meeting. “No commission, no pay, no anything.”
Before he was appointed to the commission in December 2007, Dailey said he began working to introduce Energy Systems Group to local officials. One introduction was to Virgil Miller, a banker and commission member, but it came after Energy Systems Group had already began working with airport staff members, Dailey said. His duties typically entailed arranging meetings with mayors or city executives in Conway, Rogers, Springdale, Arkadelphia and Branson, among other places, he said.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/14/2009