Airport Tower Project 6 Months Behind Schedule : Burbank: Design changes to meet earthquake safety standards increase the cost by about $130,000.

Construction of Burbank Airport’s new tower is six months behind schedule and thousands of dollars over budget because walls failed to meet state earthquake safety standards and $20,000 worth of window glass was cut a quarter-inch too small, Federal Aviation Administration officials said Tuesday.

About 30 design changes--mostly minor--have increased the project’s cost by about $130,000--to nearly $3 million, said Kent Freeman, an FAA supervisory engineer.

The construction was originally bid for $2.85 million.

The tower is needed to replace the current one atop the main terminal. The FAA has mandated that the airport tear down the terminal, built in 1930, because it is closer to runways than modern safety regulations allow.

A new terminal is planned under the airport’s proposed expansion program.

The FAA will pick up about $100,000 of the cost of the remedies and the contractor--MSH Inc. of Pasadena--will pay $10,000 for lost time and other expenses, MSH Vice President Brian Kent said. The glass subcontractor will pay about $20,000, he said.

“In a public works project of this nature, the changes we incurred were not extraordinary,” Kent said. He said that another project the company completed recently for a private firm entailed more than 300 changes in a year.

FAA officials said they were pleased with MSH’s work. “They are doing a quality job,” Freeman said.

The new tower’s dozen 10-by-12-foot thermal window panes were cut too small by a glass contractor, officials said. The FAA considered redesigning the windows to fit the glass, but discarded the idea because of safety concerns.

“We want to keep obstructions in the tower at an absolute minimum,” said Sidney Allen, Burbank air traffic manager for the FAA. He said poor visibility from the control tower is a factor being investigated in the Feb. 1 collision between a USAir jetliner and a commuter plane that killed 34 people at Los Angeles International Airport.

The FAA also decided to modify the new tower’s exterior concrete panels after a newly hired engineering firm said the panels had not been attached securely enough to meet state earthquake safety standards. Interior walls were taken out so that additional mountings could be secured.

Window installations should be completed by early June, and the walls by mid-June, officials said.

The tower, expected to be in operation by November, is being built on a 1.4-acre site about 1,000 yards north of the present terminal.

The proposed new terminal, including land, is expected to cost $200 million to $250 million. A consultant is preparing an environmental analysis of the site for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Commission.

The airport, served by six major airlines and two commuter lines, had a record 3.4 million passengers in 1990, largely because of a fare war. Environmental consultants to the airport commission have estimated that passenger traffic could grow to 14 million annually by 2025. But airport noise critics have accused the authority of pushing for a massive new terminal without regard to the increased noise and traffic.