Denver International Airport (DEN) will begin work this week on a $29.5 million project to rehabilitate and improve one of its six heavily used runways.
Runway 8/26, located on the northeast side of the airfield, will be closed from July 10 to approximately Oct. 31 while crews replace 72,000 square yards of deteriorating pavement, improve lighting and runway sensors, upgrade taxiway safety areas and make improvements that allow greater ease of access for emergency response vehicles. The airport is working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to minimize potential impacts on airlines and passengers during this work.
The project is part of DEN’s ongoing airfield pavement management program. The resurfacing work will be performed by Colorado-based Interstate Highway Construction. The work includes the replacement of approximately 1,041 panels of concrete, each measuring about 25 square feet.
“Denver International Airport has one of the busiest airfields in the world, and we are committed to the maintenance and safety of this infrastructure,” said Ken Greene, DEN’s chief operating officer. “This work is a capital investment that helps ensure that the airport remains one of the most efficient in the country.”
At 12,000 feet long and 150 feet wide, runway 8/26 is one of DEN’s two east-west runways. DEN has a total of six, non-intersecting runways, and the other five runways will operate as normal during construction. In 2016, there were about 565,000 flight operations at DEN, carrying more than 58.3 million passengers – making it the sixth-busiest airfield in the world, in terms of total aircraft movements.