Toledo Express about to replace faded carpeting in its terminal

2/21/2008

After a five-month delay because of a problem with a related exterior-siding project, the faded carpet on the ground floor of Toledo Express Airport's passenger terminal should be replaced starting next month.

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority's airport committee has approved a staff recommendation to hire Legacy Commercial Flooring of Columbus, which has a Holland office, to install carpet the local agency bought last year for the project.

If the port authority's full board of director approves next week, Legacy would be hired as the contract holder for the State of Ohio Cooperative Purchasing Program and paid an estimated $71,000 under state-contract pricing for the carpet's removal and replacement.

Port directors in September approved a $348,000 contract with Brooks Contracting of Perrysburg for both the carpet installation and replacement of exterior siding on the terminal's parking-lot side.

But port authority staff members told the airport committee Tuesday that Brooks didn't return contract documents after being chosen as the winning bidder.

Ray Brooks, the company's vice president, said yesterday his firm never signed the contract because its siding supplier learned that it couldn't meet the port's materials specification.

Siding on the terminal's airfield side was replaced during the early 1990s, but the siding on the parking-lot side dates to the building's mid-1950s construction and has become leak-prone, Steve Arnold, the airport's director of operations, told the airport committee.

The terminal's carpeting last was replaced during an interior remodeling project, also during the early 1990s.

Airport Director Eric Frankl said the new carpet to be installed is identical to that used when the upstairs waiting room was expanded several years ago.

Along with approving the Legacy contract, the port board will be asked to authorize rebidding the siding replacement when it meets next week. Mr. Arnold said that rebidding won't occur for several months.

Both projects are 95 percent federally funded with airport-improvement money. The balance will come from local airport funds.