AIRPORT UPGRADES
$13M grant means new runway
Medicine Hat Regional Airport will get a new runway to go along with its new terminal and new commercial land marketed in the area thanks to a $13-million airport improvement grant from the federal government, a city committee heard Wednesday.
Over the next two years, the underground drainage and field lighting systems on the landing strip will also be replaced after the value of the two-year-old grant application was nearly doubled.
“It’s extraordinarily good news,” said commissioner Stan Schwartzenberger.
The item was first included in the 2015-16 city budget as a $7.5million item, dependent on grant funding, to repave the main runway and the taxiway that joins it to the departure gate.
As the engineering design progressed, drainage upgrades were added, and working on the underground system will require the lights to be removed.
The entire budget is now $12.99 million, to be paid entirely out of the Airports Capital Assistance Program offered by Transport Canada.
Committee members endorsed the plan, noting the grant and the federal government for its support.
Airport general manager Jeff Huntus said the work is badly needed and could commence in the fall.
The centre strip of the main runway was last resurfaced in 1994, making it “a 10-year patch that’s lasted 23 years,” said Huntus. The edges on either side date back to original construction in the early 1980s.
“Without a safe, working runway, new terminals, aprons, new air service (providers) and flight instruction schools don’t have a chance for success,” he said.
Work could last several weeks to replace the drainage plan and lighting, said Huntus. The resurfacing would go ahead in 2018, and most work would occur in the overnight hours to minimize disruption to air travel.
The work will not extend the runway, which administrators say is long enough to welcome current passenger and cargo planes that fly to the city as well as the Bombardier Q400, which is a popular 80-seat aircraft on regional routes.
Facelift for 603 lot
A facelift for the parking lot at 603 First St. is in the works after council decided to shelve a planned commercial block last summer, saying instead that lowcost improvements could spruce up the site until the development market improves.
Planners from several city departments presented three options for the space, with committee members endorsing a $300,000 plan to repave the surface and add new lighting, planters and provide space for food truck vendors for use during downtown festivals.
Grant MacKay of the land and business support office, said the plan is the least intense, but will create space on three corners for festivals and events along with the city hall plaza and Veterans Memorial Riverside Park.
“We didn’t want to erect anything (on the lot) that would be an additional cost for a potential purchaser,” he said. “We’re keeping improvements to the surface and perimeter.”
An $800,000 option involved paving, landscaping, plus coloured brick walkways (similar to the streetscape on Second Street.
That would be the first phase of a $2.4-million plan to redo the lot, plus change some aspects of First Street and add a traffic circle at the intersection with Sixth Avenue.