The City of Kenai will receive a nearly $1.6 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration for repairs to the apron space — where airplanes are parked and stored — at the Kenai Municipal Airport.
The city council last month enacted an ordinance through a rare, truncated single reading process. City Manager Terry Eubank said that’s because of a sharp turnaround to accept the grant money from the FAA. The ordinance calls for accepting $1.58 million, directing $83,000 for a required local match, and awarding a pair of contracts for the construction work.
HDL Engineering Consultants, of Anchorage, will be paid $208,160 for architectural and engineering work. CR Contracting, based in Bend, Oregon, will be paid $1.27 million for crack repair, sealing and pavement marking.
Per a memo by Airport Manager Derek Ables, the city had previously appropriated around $519,000 for the project. The city will now only spend the $83,000 necessary for the local match. The ordinance says the remaining balance, more than $400,000, of that appropriation will be returned to the airport special revenue fund.
Ables said during the council meeting that the project will cover the whole length of the airport’s apron and adjoining taxiway, and also take around six to eight weeks to complete. That work is projected to be completed next year.
That’ll make for a lot of work underway at the local airport next summer, when it is also projected to see rehabilitation of the main runway and taxiway through a separate project. Ables said this new funding from the FAA was unexpected and additive to the funding the airport receives from the federal government each year. It’s worth the coordination, Ables said, to take advantage of those funds and complete all the work.
The council voted unanimously to approve both the shortened timeline and to enact the ordinance during their Aug. 20 meeting.
The full text of the ordinance and a recording of the meeting can be found at kenai.city.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
