The runway 27 obstruction mitigation project - also known as the AEP power line lowering project at the end of the east/west runway at the Warsaw Municipal Airport - is on schedule, the Warsaw Board of Aviation Commissioners heard at their meeting Tuesday.
Robert LaFayette, aviation planning leader at CHA Consulting Inc., the airport’s engineering firm, reported to the board, “The project is on schedule. The outages are still set. They have started the tree trimming and removal, they started that at the beginning of this month. They will take several weeks.”
He said it was suggested a groundbreaking or potential ceremony take place after the tree trimming is completed.
“We are waiting for some parts to be delivered. They basically gave AEP a four-week timeline from late October to late November for the bolt cages, and so that has the construction outage for Dec. 2 through Dec. 19 - that’s when they’re going to do all the bolt cages and the foundations. And then the line work has to be done after the foundation work is completed. Obviously, you can’t put the towers up without the foundations set,” LaFayette stated.
The tentative dates for the completion of switching over the high lines to the low lines are Jan. 6 through Jan. 23.
“They have been working with the homeowners down there. There was a farmer that wanted to be able to pull his crops prior to them getting trampled,” LaFayette said. “There’s another homeowner that wants to do some hunting on the south area of the property. So they are working with the local community to make sure that they’re not as disruptive as they could be with the construction.”
He did point out it was about a month late for the power to be on, as it was expected for the power to be on at the end of December 2024. The line work is now looking to be completed in late January.
LaFayette presented an invoice from CHA for $7,731.53, with the local share being $386.59. The board approved the invoice.
On the wildlife hazard site visit report for the whole airport, LaFayette said they were waiting for Airport Manager Nick King to provide any comments or feedback, but otherwise that task order is wrapped up. King said he’s provided feedback and a couple adjustments were being made.
With that, LaFayette presented a CHA invoice for $7,163.82, with the local share being $358.19. The board approved the invoice.
Moving on to the corporate taxi lane E-1 rehabilitation and reconstruction, LaFayette said the final inspection, punch list and walk-through is completed. There were some changes that needed to be made that resulted in a change order.
“All of the changes that we needed to make - the additional effort that was necessary to do it both on the CHA side and the Phend & Brown side - does stay within the original budget that we had proposed for the project, so this change order is not going above or beyond or provide any additional dollars to the airport out of pocket. This stays within the state grant,” LaFayette said.
Ranjit Bhandari, civil engineer with CHA, said they added some minor repairs to the entrance drives and 14 additional concrete panels in front of hangars, which is why there was a change order. LaFayette said, “This is tremendously good use of additional state money that we have within the original budget.”
He asked the board to approve the CHA invoice for $10,909.50; Phend & Brown’s pay application for $404,643.67; and the change order increasing the contract amount with Phend & Brown by $233,402. All three are 100% state share, and the board approved all of them.
“Just to reiterate,” LaFayette said, “the $2 million grant - the bids obviously came in very nice. So being able to get an additional 14 panels above what our original task was of infrastructure improvements, is really good. The airport does a great job of getting the most out of the money that we could.”
Board President Jay Rigdon gave King and CHA the credit for doing that. King said the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) was instrumental in that, too. “It was a good partnership,” King said.
The last thing LaFayette had a report on was the Airport Overlay District (AOD) that is in the process of being developed.
“We are working through some of the zones, like what makes the most sense. What’s, I don’t want to say the least impactful, but what makes the most sense for descriptions and definitions and dimensions based on current and future development at the airport. With the changes coming to the airport, we just want to make sure that the airport is protected, and because there’s so much visibility on it from the city perspective, mayor and city planning, we want to make sure it’s right the first time so that in two years we don’t have to come back and say, ‘Hey, based on the 9-27 program, we need to change the AOD again,” LaFayette stated.
He then presented an invoice from CHA for $12,000, which is all local. King pointed out that the airport received funds from the county to help pay toward that. The board approved the invoice.
King brought up the runway 9-27 rehabilitation project. While LaFayette didn’t have an update on it, King said he asked CHA to prepare a change order for the project.
“After some discussions with the FAA and the state, while we are not guaranteed money, there is a potential in the next couple years that some could be available for a reconstruction of 9-27 instead of just doing a mill and overlay like we’ve originally been planning for next year,” King said. “So I have asked CHA to work on a change order. It will increase the task order No. 11, I’m not sure what that final number will be yet, but it will add some additional sheets in that engineering document that will have all of the sub-grade as well. That will allow us to go out to bid for both the mill and fill, as well as the reconstruct.”
If federal money comes available, the airport has its local match and is eligible for that project, “having the project already designed and sitting on the shelf, just ready to go, it will put us way ahead of all of the other airports that have to scramble a design to compete for the same money because we’ll already bids in hand for those projects,” King said.
He said CHA is working on that.
If the federal money does not come through, King said they can still do the mill and fill and they’ve got the project engineered so that in a few years when the airport is ready for the reconstruction of the runway, the design is ready to go.
“The other nice thing with that, if that money does become available for the reconstruction next year, the money that we spent on the design work is eligible for federal reimbursement, so we would get the federal and state portion of that grant back if we get the project for the reconstruction,” he stated.
Board Vice President John Yingling asked when that decision would be made. King said they wouldn’t know until 2025.
LaFayette said the amended task order for that will probably be before the board at their next meeting, which is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Dec. 10.