SRP Utility Hangar

Summarize the project's program, features and achievements?

SRP Utility Hangar is a modern aircraft hangar designed with shops, administrative offices, utility rooms, and support spaces. Commissioned by Salt River Project, designed by Stantec, and brought to life by GCON, Inc., SRP Utility Hangar is now the hub for Salt River Project Flight Services. With the ability to store 3 aircrafts, along with a hangar dedicated to aircraft maintenance, thoughtful designs add to why this building continues to shape the ever - changing Falcon Field in Mesa.

What obstacles were overcome related to the schedule, budget, program, specification, site, etc. on this project?

The biggest operational obstacles primarily stemmed from constructing and lifting tilt panels at an active airfield. Falcon Field Airport has two active runways and is home to more than 130 aviation-related businesses, from the sixteen different flight schools to aircraft maintenance, charter services, and various other aviation vendors. The site itself is located immediately south of the airport’s primary runway, leading the entire site to work closely with the FAA to ensure compliance was maintained throughout the entire project and not just during the mobilization of the crane to lift the panels. Communication and organization were critical for this job to ensure the minimal delays seen remained minimal. We were able to pour and lift in two separate pour and lift sequences, which gave us a little more flexibility to make any adjustments if needed around meeting any unforeseen delays from the FAA, and without impacting on any daily airfield operations.

Please communicate any engineering complexities or unique features of the panel design for this project?

A combination of 1.5” V-Groove reveals and Brickform powdered integral color were used to create the airplane silhouettes featured across the fronts and sides of SRP Utility Hangar. Rather than relying on the traditional painting route, the design team incorporated color directly into the concrete mix, allowing for the contrast in graphics, along with the use of reveal to create the several planes spanning the building. While visually striking, the execution of this is tedious, as the smallest imperfection would be seen. The silhouettes span across multiple panels, intersect control joints, and aligned with various window openings, meaning the smallest miscalculation during work, variation in panel dimension or reveal placement would have been noticeable immediately. To further highlight the design elements of the airplane silhouettes, sandblasting was utilized to add a textural component to ensure the silhouettes stood out even further. The complexity of this was ensuring that only the areas which required the texture were sandblasted and done so evenly, and without damaging the reveal lines. If not, additional time and delays would have been seen through additional patchwork, as well as disruptions to the schedule and overall quality of the design. In addition to the elaborate design work, SRP Utility Hangar features a 2” foam insulation within the panels, which is another uncommon layer for an Arizona Project.