Reno airport snow removal ready for winter with new $6.2 million facility

The temperature hit 100 degrees Monday, but officials at Reno-Tahoe International Airport were thinking cold in showing off their new 30,000-square-foot Snow Removal Equipment Building.
For the first time, the airport’s 23-vehicle fleet of plows, steel roller brooms and sprayers will be housed and cared for in a temperature-controlled setting, promising better – and faster – response when the snow flies again next winter, airport CEO Krys Bart said.
And that means extending the life of the equipment by as much as 25 percent inside the $6.2 million facility.
“Some of these machines cost $1 million, so we need to get as much life out of them as we can. We need to protect them,” Bart said before dozens of officials watched a parade of snow-removal equipment led by a sweeper machine plowing through a red ribbon across one of the facility’s open doorways.
She said the complex on the south end of the airport will also better position the airport to continue operating during winter storms that could delay skiers and other tourists who help to feed the local economy.
“Snow is an integral part of our culture and economic impact. Winter is very important to us,” she said.
The facility has a subfloor heating system as well as 21 rollup doors, each 26 feet wide and 16 feet high, at both ends to allow for drive-through access that will help minimize response times, officials said.
The facility was designed by H+K Architects and built by Sparks-based Clark & Sullivan Construction, whose co-founder, B.J. Sullivan, said 95 percent of the work was done with local subcontractors and labor.
The Snow Removal Equipment Building is being financed with passenger facility charges that are levied on out-bound passengers at all U.S. airports, according to Reno airport officials.
Bart said the equipment doesn’t just sit in the warmer months.
“It’s needed for painting runways, weed spraying,” she said. “And we’re already preparing for winter. In the good weather, we’re overhauling the equipment and we’re training with our snow-removal plans.”
But when the snow season returns, she said, the airport will be ready to keep the two-mile-long runways and connecting taxiways cleared.
“When these machines sit out in the cold, they can be hard to start,” Bart said. “Being inside, we can have them ready to go the minute the snow hits.”