XNA officials see progress on road

HIGHFILL — Regional airport officials say they’re making inroads on an access road after joining the state highway department earlier this year to speed up the process.

The Arkansas Department of Transportation and Garver Engineering have contracted for an environmental assessment of proposed routes for the road, which will likely serve more of western Benton County than just the airport.

Tim House, director of engineering and construction at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, said the focus has narrowed to a 4-mile area between the airport and Arkansas 112.

“We have, I think, a pretty good path that’s been laid out ahead,” Mike Johnson said. “We are making more progress now than we have over essentially the past 20 years. It’s been a long road, for a number of reasons, and I think over the last few years the team has got things in shape and we’ve got a road ahead and we will get this done.”

Bill McAbee with Garver said he hopes a preferred route will be selected by June 2020 and a significant portion of the design work, at least 60 percent, will be done by July 2021. Then, the process of right-of-way acquisition can begin. Bids could go out by the spring of 2022, if all goes well, McAbee said. Construction would likely take 24 to 30 months.

The Federal Highway Administration will make the final call on a route, McAbee said.

Airport officials say they’d like to have a public input session later this year.

Aaron Burkes, CEO of the

airport, said he expects the project to be paid for using money from a second Connecting Arkansas Program. Voters will be asked in November 2020 to approve extending taxes for road projects.

“They’ve identified it on the first list of projects that will be funded with CAP II,” Burkes said. “So, we think that this will be funded but the funding will be contingent upon the passage of the sales tax referendum next November.”

Kelly Johnson, chief operating

officer at the airport, said former Fayetteville Police Chief Greg Tabor will take over as chief of the airport police department Nov. 11. Tabor retired from Fayetteville in September. He joined the Fayetteville Police Department in 1985 and “termed-out” under the state’s retirement system for law enforcement and firefighters, prompting his retirement.

Airport officials said they’ll re-evaluate their emergency plan after finding several things needing to be addressed following Monday’s severe storm causing an extended power outage.

Johnson said the airport’s backup power source failed,

some equipment that should have been on an emergency power grid wasn’t and some battery backup failed. The airport had emergency generators that were used Monday to power lights, including those for the airfield, and other equipment.

“This hasn’t happened in 21 years and we don’t want to see it happen for another 21,” Johnson said. “We’re going to be getting together with our tenants and coming up with different solutions and things that can help us weather the next storm a little bit better.”