Airport master plan on the way

WADSWORTH — A new 10-year master plan for Wadsworth Municipal Airport will be drawn over the next couple of years after a City Council vote to approve federal aid for the work. A Federal Aviation Administration grant of $314,896 for the airport will cover 90 percent of total planning costs with Council also approving a payment of $349,885 to Independence-based consulting firm Crawford, Murphy, and Tilly Inc., which will draw up the master plan as well as conduct a wildlife hazard assessment of the airport and its surrounding area. "It will be about counting deer, groundhogs, and taking a look around to see how plans could affect animals," Flight Services of Wadsworth manager Chad Haller said. "We do have a terrible problem with deer and groundhogs. The master plan is a guiding document for any expansions, renovations or maintenance programs that we want to do at the airport over the next 10 to 15 years." The city is preparing for one upcoming airport project — the repaving of the east-west runway next year, with most of those costs expected to be covered by Ohio Department of Transportation grant money. ODOT grant money is also expected to pay for most of the city's 10 percent share of costs for the airport master plan. Haller said the last master plan recommended "essentially tearing up and replacing" all of the airport's runways, which he said would have cost roughly $25 million if it had been carried out 10 years ago. Since that time, only one major runway project has taken place, a $1 million resurfacing of the airport's main runway in 2016 with FAA grant dollars also covering 90 percent of those costs. "If it cost $25 million back then, it's just never going to get funded," he said. "Hopefully, the new plan will come out where we keep the existing infrastructure and improve what we already have." While officials haven't settled on a definitive list of projects set to be included in the new master plan, it generally includes general inventory of facilities and equipment on top of suggested improvement projects. The city of Wadsworth owns and administers the airport but all of its hangars are owned by private individuals, Haller said. "The plan a lot of the time will start with three options: pros and cons of keeping everything as is, pros and cons of improving what we have, and then some kind of a pie-in-the-sky perfect world scenario," he said. "Then you narrow it down to one. We do need hangars. I probably turn away six people a month who'd like to rent one, but there aren't any hangars that are owned by the airport. We also don't have any area to build on in the current master plan unless the old hangars would be torn down to make the new runway. We really can't build anything right now. "If the city was able to build its own hangars in the new master plan, it could draw revenue from them, which would be an economic benefit for the airport and is often how airport funding works at the local level." Planning is expected to be completed by 2021, at which time city and airport officials will begin deciding on actual construction projects. Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330) 721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.