CHA Deputy Project Manager in Airport Planning Robert LaFayette, left, speaks to the city of Warsaw Board of Aviation Commissioners and Airport Manager Nick King, right, Tuesday about the runway 9-27 improvement project.

By David Slone
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Construction on the Warsaw Municipal Airport runway 9-27 obstruction mitigation project will start this year, but it may not get finished in 2023.

Speaking to the Warsaw Board of Aviation Commissioners Tuesday on the project — also known as the power line lowering project — CHA Deputy Project Manager in Airport Planning Robert LaFayette said, “The construction agreement is currently circulating at AEP for signatures. We anticipate execution programming and procurement any time, so as soon as they get that to us. We have talked to them about whether or not the November ’23 schedule is still realistic based on the procurement of materials.”

He said the design is not going to be impacted, but the lead time for the steel for the project is getting longer.

“We’re anticipating an updated schedule from them. Construction will start this year. We’re waiting to see if it’s going to finish this year, so it just really depends on when they get the steel in. It sounds like the rest of the materials will be through their vendors, but unsure at this moment in time,” LaFayette said.

The next couple of meetings will be critical for the schedule, he said, and he’ll probably have an update for the board by their March 14 meeting as to what the construction schedule will be.

“But until they get through some of the procurement and programming for the materials, we won’t know what that’s going to be yet,” LaFayette stated.

Board member Gene Zale asked how many towers were they talking about for the project, and LaFayette responded six.

“To be honest, I don’t have an answer as to why the lead time on the materials is any longer. I know that we’re moving to a newer line through AEP. I’m not sure if that has any dictation on what the lead time is for the materials, but the design will be done, on schedule. At least, that’s what we’re being told at this point,” LaFayette said.

Board President Jay Rigdon said he really wanted to be able to go out there before the end of this year and see the project underway. LaFayette said he’ll see things happening by the end of this year, but the towers may not be active and lowered, with the old towers removed, by the end of the year.

“The other line has to be constructed and in place before they can do the blackout to move the power over to the new lines,” LaFayette said. “So you’ll see two sets of power lines out there before the other ones can start coming down.”

LaFayette then presented two invoices, totaling $432,510.84, with about 90% of that for AEP for pre-construction work and the remainder to CHA. The board approved for Rigdon to sign the invoices. Federal and state funds are paying for 95% of the project, with local funds only paying 5%. The local match is $22,763.

Moving on to the runway 9-27 safety area project, LaFayette said it’s still ongoing and they’re about halfway through the runway safety area determination portion, about where they were last month.

“What we’re working on now is a lot of the upfront. The evaluation was completed so we’re moving on to airfield alternatives, so what is the airfield going to look like to comply with all the FAA standards and regulations, design standards, construction standards,” LaFayette said. “So, we’ve got about four of those airfield alternatives developed at this time. I think we want to take a look at about two more before we start narrowing the focus on what everything is going to look like and start bringing (Airport Manager) Nick (King) into the fold, before we start some big coordination.”

Those alternatives will be narrowed down to three to be carried forward.

The traffic study for the project was concluding with an internal meeting on some preliminary results that was scheduled for Wednesday. That was in coordination with the county and city emergency personnel, LaFayette said.

He then presented two invoices for the safety project, along with the drawdown. The first invoice was for a total of $31,748.90, with the local share being $1,671; and the second invoice was for $23,560, with a local match of $1,240. The board approved the invoices.

Finally, LaFayette presented on the second phase of the RSAD, the environmental assessment. He said the grant is dependent on a forecast discussion happening next Friday.

“The grant is not on hold yet. What we’re trying to do is get FAA’s ducks in a row so that we can stay current on what the current program is right now and squeeze the forecast in the middle, and not impact any timing of the project itself. So we will hash that out next Friday. By the March board meeting we will have a better timeline of when phase two will start to happen,” LaFayette said.

There’s some overlap between the RSAD study and the environmental assessment and that overlap is a lot of the alternatives, he said. He said they’re trying to roll the airfield alternatives from the RSAD into the environmental assessment so there’s no redundant evaluations and money can be saved.

“The FAA wants us to do the forecast in lieu, which would push out the (environmental assessment), which we’re fighting against. So the goal is to get the forecast completed – sandwiched in the middle – so that we can keep the schedule that we want to keep for the (environmental assessment),” LaFayette explained.

He said there was nothing really to report on the assessment, other than the timeline for the assessment is dependent on next Friday’s discussion.

In other business, the board approved:

• A new lease for Brian Hoover for hangar 3D. His lease expired Dec. 31 and Hoover wanted to sign a new lease with the airport under the new lease structure the airport has.

• A contract with Robinson Construction  for the annual maintenance of the Zimmer Biomet hangar door, which Robinson Construction installed. The cost for the first year of the maintenance agreement is $5,466. The cost of the door and its construction was approximately $700,000. Board member Dan Robinson abstained from the vote as he is co-owner of Robinson Construction.