Metal Building Contractors in Durango, Colorado

A hangar, a ground-support shop and a parts warehouse all want the same thing near Durango: steel on site before the next busy season. We put up pre-engineered metal buildings for owners in that spot, and every quote opens with the load package and the lead time, not a brochure number.

The airport is the reason the phone rings. Durango-La Plata County Airport handled 563,009 passengers in 2025, its busiest year on record and up 13% from 2024. More seats means more rental fleet, fuel, charter, cargo and maintenance work wanting a roof close to the field. Those tenants rarely need a fancy building. They need clear floor, a tall door and a firm finish date.

That is a rigid-frame job, and it is the kind we price by the square foot with the roof system broken out as its own line. If your project is a hangar, start with our aircraft hangar work. If it is a shop or storage building, keep reading.

Which jurisdiction holds your permit

Start with the parcel, not the drawings. La Plata County enforces the 2015 International Building, Residential, Mechanical, Plumbing, Fuel Gas and Energy Conservation codes in unincorporated areas, based on its permit packet revised February 9, 2024. The City of Durango, the Town of Ignacio and the City of Bayfield sit outside that county jurisdiction and run their own review. A building ten minutes apart can land with two different plan reviewers.

The county design criteria give us numbers to build to: a 32 inch frost depth, Seismic Design Category B, a 115 mph ultimate wind speed, Climate Zone 5 and 6,981 heating degree days. Roof snow load is read from Table 301.2(2), so we pull it for your parcel rather than guess. Those inputs go straight onto the quote as a written load package, and the engineer stamps the frame to them. The heating degree count also tells us how much insulation a conditioned building really needs, which is where an insulated metal panel wall starts to earn its cost.

Expansive clay decides the foundation

La Plata County requires a soils report, an engineered foundation design, or both, wherever county GIS mapping shows expansive clay. Its minimum foundation details cannot be used in expansive soils without an engineer stamp. That is not paperwork you want to discover after steel is ordered.

Our order of work: check the mapping on day one, get the soils report on the calendar, and let the engineer size footings and piers before we release the bolt package. Footings go below the 32 inch frost line. The anchor bolts and foundation scope gets surveyed against the setting plan before a single column ships. A pad that moves with the clay will rack a frame, so we would rather spend a week up front on the foundation than a month on a callback. Budget the geotechnical work and the engineered slab as their own lines, because they swing more than the steel does.

Hangars, shops and county buildings

What we are asked to build around Durango is a short list. T-hangars and box hangars sized to the aircraft, with the door heights to match. Service bays and parts buildings for fleets. Equipment storage for contractors and outfitters. Public works buildings for a county or town that wants a roof it can maintain. The airport side is covered under aircraft hangars, and the public side under government and municipal buildings.

Clear span is the default because it keeps the floor open for wingspans and trucks. Wall panels, trim and a standing seam roof are all options, and we price each one so you can see what the upgrade costs before you commit.

Airside timing and terminal-era logistics

Airport construction teaches you to plan around closures. The airport shut for 10 full days in summer 2022 to rebuild the entire length of its 9,200 foot runway, which is its only runway. If your hangar is on the field, we ask early about haul routes, badge access and laydown, because an airside gate that is closed for a day costs an erection crew a day.

Terminal work adds traffic. Phase 1A construction ran from April 2023 to July 2024, and Phase 1B construction began in October 2024 on a 27 month schedule. We do not assume anything about the contractors on that project. We just schedule deliveries for off-peak hours and keep our laydown tight so we are not in anyone else's way. Hangar doors are the long-lead item on most airside jobs, so see our overhead hangar door scope and order them first.

Work beyond the field

Owners who build one steel building usually build a second. Ours tend to add a wash bay, a mezzanine for parts or an enclosed lean-to, and an aviation operator may want the apron slab and door package thought through as one scope. Farther up the corridor we work in Telluride, where hangar space is the draw, and in Delta, where agricultural and shop buildings are more common.

Ask for the full scope at quote. We will price what you need now and show where the frame can be extended later without cutting into finished space.

Get a Durango steel building price

Send us the parcel, the footprint and what goes inside. We will answer with a snow and wind package, a steel lead time and a dollars-per-square-foot range, and we will say plainly whether the county or the city holds your permit.