The 97218 zip covers the NE Airport Way corridor, the Cully neighborhood, and the lands adjacent to PDX International Airport. The character of the zip splits sharply between two zones: the freight, warehouse, and hospitality district along Airport Way and the surrounding port-adjacent industrial land, and the residential Cully neighborhood that anchors the south side of the zip. Asphalt paving in 97218 is overwhelmingly large-scale commercial and freight work -- hotel and rental-car lots, distribution warehouses, port-owned haul roads, and the auxiliary commercial that serves the airport economy.
What asphalt paving looks like in 97218
The dominant 97218 scope is mid-to-large commercial parking lot work and industrial freight pavement. The lots are big -- 50,000 to 500,000+ square feet for the bigger distribution and hospitality properties -- and the pavement section is often heavier-duty than retail or residential work because of the daily truck and freight loading.
Full tear-out and replacement is common in 97218 in a way that it is not in inner Portland, simply because the lots are large enough that a phased tear-out-and-replace approach can keep operations running while the work proceeds. The phasing logistics are a meaningful part of every 97218 quote.
PDX hotel and rental-car lots
The hotels along Airport Way -- and the rental-car facilities that serve PDX -- run large parking lots that have to stay operational during paving work. The phasing here is critical. We typically scope the work in 30,000 to 80,000 square foot sections, completing one section before opening it to traffic and moving to the next. A typical 200,000 square foot hotel or rental-car lot might phase over four to eight weekends across a season.
The pavement spec for these lots is usually a heavy-duty mix capable of taking daily rental-car turnover plus the weekend surge during peak travel periods. Section thickness is typically 3 to 4 inches of asphalt over 6 to 10 inches of compacted aggregate base. The combination delivers a 20 to 25 year service life under normal conditions.
Port-owned haul roads
The Port of Portland controls a substantial amount of land in 97218, including haul roads, freight access routes, and the various pavement networks that serve the working airport and the adjacent industrial properties. Work on port-owned pavement requires coordination with Port engineering and follows Port-specific pavement spec rather than city-standard spec.
The Port spec is typically heavier-duty than commercial-standard: thicker sections, denser-graded aggregate, and sometimes polymer-modified binder for the highest-traffic areas. The work has to coordinate with active operations, which often means overnight or weekend windows even on the lowest-volume sections. We coordinate Port jobs in advance of mobilization and treat the Port engineer as the primary technical point of contact during execution.
BES stormwater code 1100
The Portland Bureau of Environmental Services stormwater management manual (code 1100) sets the rules for any impervious surface project above defined thresholds. For 97218 paving work that stays within the existing footprint, BES review is usually a verification step. For projects that expand impervious area or change drainage paths, full stormwater facility review applies -- typically requiring a swale, infiltration system, or approved alternative.
The size of 97218 lots means the BES threshold gets crossed more often than in smaller commercial zips. We pull BES into the scope at quote time on any 97218 work that touches stormwater design. Read more about the regional context at parking lot paving cost.
Cost ranges for 97218 asphalt paving
Industry Baseline Range
| Project Type | Cost Per Sq Ft | Typical Total |
|---|---|---|
| Parking lot overlay (1.5 to 2 inches new) | $2.00 to $5.00 | $40,000 to $500,000+ |
| Parking lot full-depth replacement | $5.00 to $11.00 | $80,000 to $1,500,000+ |
| Industrial freight pavement (heavy-duty spec) | $6.00 to $14.00 | $150,000 to $2,000,000+ |
| Port-spec haul road (per sq ft) | $7.00 to $16.00 | varies by scope |
| Full-depth patch repair (per sq ft of patch) | $8.00 to $18.00 | varies by patch area |
Current Market Reality
97218 asphalt pricing runs at or near the broader Portland metro commercial baseline for retail-spec work, and above baseline for freight or Port-spec work. The pricing variances are driven by section thickness, mix design, phasing logistics, and the coordination overhead of working alongside active airport, freight, or Port operations. Material costs have moved with petroleum binder pricing through 2025 and 2026. Labor for skilled crews has tracked the broader construction wage market. For the full statewide context see our asphalt paving cost guide.
Cully residential and small commercial
The Cully neighborhood on the south side of 97218 has a different paving profile from the Airport Way corridor. Cully is mostly residential with small-commercial pockets along NE 42nd and NE Killingsworth. Residential driveway work and small-lot commercial scope here looks much like other inner SE and NE Portland small-lot work -- 5,000 to 15,000 square feet, weekend or after-hours scheduling, and combined patch-overlay-seal sequences for most older lots.
We treat Cully scope separately from Airport Way scope in our dispatch because the constraints are different. Residential driveway and small-commercial work uses smaller crews and smaller equipment. Airport Way and Port work uses full freight-scale crews and equipment.
Scheduling pave windows in 97218
Asphalt requires surface temperatures above 50 degrees F and a dry compaction window of 4 to 8 hours after laydown. In 97218 that practical season runs mid-May through mid-October. The most reliable scheduling block is mid-June through late September.
Airport Way commercial work typically runs on overnight or weekend windows to fit around hotel and rental-car operations. Port work coordinates with Port engineering. Cully residential and small commercial work runs weekday business hours or weekend windows depending on the property.
What separates a good 97218 paving job
The 97218 lots that last 25 years and the ones that fail at 10 differ in three predictable places. First, base condition is assessed honestly before laydown -- soft sections corrected, base material brought to spec, drainage paths confirmed. Second, the mix design and section thickness match the actual use -- heavier-duty mix for freight, polymer-modified where the loads warrant, retail-spec where appropriate. Third, compaction runs to spec across the full lot, including the edges and curb transitions where shortcuts are easiest. We treat all three as non-negotiable on every airport-adjacent job because shortcutting any of them creates premature failure on the kind of properties that cannot tolerate that downtime.
Cojo serves 97218 and the broader Portland metro from our Hood River HQ via I-84. We handle airport-adjacent commercial paving, Port-spec haul road work, and Cully residential and small commercial as separate scope tracks. Request a free estimate. For nearby coverage see Airport striping and Kenton sealcoating.