Sundt Completes Private Aviation Club

Sundt Construction Inc. of Phoenix recently completed Airmore Hangar One at the city of Scottsdale Airport. The private facility can accommodate up to 15 aircraft in its two 30,000-square-foot hangars. Airmore LLC members own their own airplanes, and membership entitles them to use of the hangars

Work on the one-of-a-ding $29-million project began in March 2002. The 5.5-acre site includes five buildings — one for aviation administration, two hangars, an annex for social functions, and a garage to house and maintain the owner's vintage car collection. Interior of the annex is furnished with custom fixtures, upholstered ceilings, exotic stone and terrazzo floor coverings, and a top-of-the-line automation and audio-visual system. Swayback Partners of Scottsdale and Tihany Design International of New York City are responsible for the design.

Walls of the project buildings are primarily concrete tilt panels cast on-site, with post-tensioned concrete decks. There are simulated tie holes in each exterior panel which align perfectly and resemble cast-in-place concrete walls. Careful calculations and considerable time were necessary to both cast and install the panels so the tie holes would line up. There are approximately 136 tilt panels of various sizes in the project, the average size being 16 feet by 32 feet.

The buildings also have several cast-in-place concrete walls, one of which is designed to look like it has been shot through by bullets. Each "bullet hole" is of a different size and/or at a different angle. Sundt self-performed all of the project concrete work.

Each building has a definite theme: stone, concrete, airplanes, and aluminum. Forty-foot aluminum poles located around the operations building simulate the child's game of pick-up sticks. Above this is a 108-foot "paper airplane" clad in aluminum and spanning the buildings at the main entry. Standing seam roofs of the parking garages have the appearance of an aircraft wing. Extending 80 feet from each of the two hangars are cantilevered parking canopies covered with shade fabric produced in Australia. Aircraft wait here in the shade for departure clearance. The club annex has an octagonal skylight and an observation deck.

The owner will store and display his collection of vintage automobiles on-site. A lift will carry the vehicles from their underground storage area up to the mechanics' work area and on into the auto display space. An interlock system controls the lift so it cannot be operated without the safety rails in place.

Three elevators convey people between the different levels. The two in the members' area contain transparent panels for viewing miniature model airplanes depicting aircraft from the 1940s to the present. The models were painted by a local hobbyist to ensure accuracy of the colors, style and labeling.

Fifty-four subcontractors used material from all over the world to complete the unusual project. These materials include ceramics and brick from Italy, stone from a Vermont quarry, green onyx from China, and the Australian shade fabric, to name but a few.

Clint Sundt, who managed the project, remarked, "The project came in on time and within budget. Just 16 months to complete this $29-million project — one of its kind, unlike any other!"