Contact:

Suzanne Luber Pager

602-273-3450 602-673-5355

Oct. 4, 2000

The runway is 7800 feet in length and will be called 7Right/25Left (the runway name is derived from the compass heading). It is located 800 feet south of the existing south runway.

The third runway will be used primarily for landings and can be used for takeoffs for planes as large as 757's.

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport officially decided to build the third runway in the 1989 Aviation Master Plan. The plan also included the relocation of the Arizona Air National Guard.

In March 1995, Chanen/Sverdrup was hired by the city of Phoenix Aviation Department as the construction manager on the project. Kiewit Western Construction is the general contractor and Gardner/Zemke is the electrical subcontractor.

Construction on the runway began in April 1997 after a short delay that was caused when the discovery of a Hohokam Tribal burial site located to the west of the runway area during an archaeological study in 1996.

The third runway cost $175 million, including the relocation of more than 60 buildings for the Arizona Air National Guard, and was funded primarily by the Federal Aviation Administration and passenger facility charges. The city of Phoenix Aviation Department is an enterprise fund and does not use general city tax dollars.

More than 550,000 hours were logged by city staff, engineers and contractors to complete the runway project.

The scope of the electrical work on the runway includes 162 miles of cable; 191 miles of conduit, 149 manholes and 9 miles of fiber optic cable with 99 percent of this work buried underground. Electricians also installed 1971 runway/taxiway lights and 262 lighted airfield guidance signs.

There is enough concrete poured in the runway to construct a sidewalk from Phoenix to Houston and contractors moved enough dirt to fill 20,000 backyard pools.

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