Birtcher Wins $60-Million Tijuana Airport Contract

Birtcher Construction Ltd. has nailed down a $60-million contract to build a service facility for wide-body jets at Tijuana International Airport in Mexico, the company confirmed Wednesday.

Fluor Daniel in Irvine is the architect for the project, one of only five such facilities in the world.

The contract is Birtcher’s first major international construction management project. The company has been laying plans for several years to enter markets outside the United States to counter the slump in domestic construction.

When completed in the fall of 1993, the hangar will be big enough to house two 747s and one DC-10 at the same time. With 150,000 square feet of space under one roof with no internal pillars or posts, it will be the largest such facility in Mexico. The nearest similar hangar is in Singapore.

The hangar will have a special ventilation system so that when its doors are closed, air pressure within the building will keep the space clean enough to allow engineers and maintenance workers to strip the skin off the planes and work on the internal electronics systems.