The city of Warsaw and the Warsaw Airport has been named a recipient of a supplemental funding grant from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The announcement was made Friday morning at Warsaw City Hall by Mayor Joe Thallemer and Airport Manager Nick King. The $6.3 million grant is being award as part of an FAA Airport Improvement Plan grant for phase one of the airport runway extension project.
Thallemer said this grant “just eliminated one of those major hurdles for this project.”
Phase one of the project includes the lowering of power lines on the east end of the east/west runway that run along County Road 100 East.
King says the grant will provide 100% of the funding for the project, so nothing is coming out of pocket from the city and no local or state taxes are being used to accomplish the project. Originally, the city would have paid five percent of the total project cost, but Thallemer says that five percent saved can now potentially go into the phase two costs.
The city is expected to receive the funds next year and engineering and construction could also begin next year as well. Thallemer stated that will go along as things move along through those outside sources. One thing that could slow it down is what sort of projects that American Electric Power has lined up and the potential of other priority projects leapfrogging this one.
Overall, phase one will improve the safety of both incoming and outgoing aircraft on the primary runway, save the money in operational costs to support the warning lights associated with the power lines, and the completion of the project will allow for the recovery of the use of existing runway and the extension of the new runway will have a total new usable surface of 2,400 feet that creates 7,500 feet of total runway in the future.
Right now, the east/west runway is 6,000 feet in length, but pilots can only utilize 5,100 feet when landing or taking off on a day-to-day basis, and it lowers to 4,100 feet in days of bad weather. The current height of the power poles and CR 100 E are contributing factors to those take off and landing lengths.
King says according to their capital improvement project prior to this grant coming in, the lowering of the power lines were slated to be done in 2021 and the second phase of the runway expansion in 2022, but the grant could potentially move up those project dates.
Phase two of the project will include changes to CR 100 E, which King mentions that they want to tunnel the road to open up the land for other potential projects and possible further expansions with the airport runways. He says that all depends on the final environmental study, funding and the full project cost.
When asked if it’s accurate to say if the road won’t change for a couple years, there wasn’t an answer for it since it is part of the phase two project. “It’s accurate to say we’ll lower the power lines.”
Warsaw was one of two airports in Indiana to receive this supplemental grant, with the other being Indianapolis International Airport, who received $4.25 million for runway rehabilitation.
Aviation board member Gene Zale said he has been on the board for nearly 40 years, and he would not leave the board until this project would be done. Board member Jay Rigdon joked toward the end of the meeting, “For once, we got more money than Indianapolis.”
When asked about the city’s portion of work for the project, King said, “The only thing we’re doing is paperwork.” Rigdon added that Gene would go out and “point and tell them what to do.”
Zale said it would be “an honorary position.”
