Some improvements are coming to the Union County Airport, after its board recently approved two construction projects.
At the regular monthly board meeting on Tuesday, airport authority members approved a contract with Sweet Meadow Farm Drainage for turf runway improvements, which includes relocating the turf runway further south, the installation of a new LED lighted windcone and fertilization. The total cost for this work comes to $320,443.
The board approved a $97,566 contract with Woolpert Consultants for project administrative services to oversee the work.
Dave Gotschall, project manager with Woolpert Consultants, said an Ohio Department of Transportation grant will cover 95% of the project, which includes the turf work, lighted windcone and most of the administrative services. The remaining 5% and $2,300 for fertilization will come out of the airport authority budget.
Gotschall said construction will start in July.
As part of the second airport project, only one bid was received from 2k General Company for work on the new 15-unit T-Hangars. The exact amount of the bid was not disclosed.
The board approved Woolpert construction administrative services to submit an FAA grant application: one for the Airport Improvement Plan/Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, in which the airport will receive $448,000 for use in the T-Hangar construction project, and another for using entitlement funds to help pay for the Woolpert’s admin services.
Additional funds are available through the AIP/BIL on top of the $448,000, with $144,000 available both in 2025 and 2026.
Woolpert will also oversee that work at a cost of $99,911, $89,900 of that cost will be covered by the entitlement funds.
The construction of the 15-unit T-Hangars will be part of the airport authority’s plan to repay their loan from Richwood Bank. The loan would cover the remaining cost of the bid after the AIP/BIL grant.
Steve Koenig, president of Union County Airport Authority, said there were initially some concerns about how the loan would be repaid but added that Richwood Bank has gone through all their finances and found no red flags.
“Their issue is a legal one because there’s no way they can take collateral against the airport,” Koenig said. “So somebody has to guarantee the loan.”
Koenig said part of the reason they have not signed off on the loan is because they believe the build cannot repay the loan payment.
“We’re not arguing that. What we presented was the totality of our revenues for all of our T-Hangars and our best single volume hangar…and when we add the income from the new unit, we will have almost $25,000 in revenues per month,” he said. “So we’ll have sufficient funds, generally speaking, to pay back the loan.”
Koenig said a backup option to get the loan deal done would be to get it as a government loan backed by the business community through what’s called a several guarantee.
In a several guarantee, each guarantor is agreeing to be liable to the lender up to a certain monetary amount no matter what the other guarantor has repaid, according to Google.
Koenig said he already has two companies on board and is looking to find more people with their own businesses that would assist with guaranteeing.