$6.3 Million Federal Aviation Administration Grant

Formal notification of a FAA supplemental grant fund award to the City of Warsaw is expected today as this past Wednesday, preliminary notification was received of being awarded an FAA Airport Improvement Plan grant for phase one of the Warsaw Airport runway extension. Phase one includes the lowering of the electrical power lines to the east of the east/west runway.

• The grant is in the amount of $6.3 million dollars.
• The grant will provide 100% of the funding for the project.
• The grant is from a supplemental funding source that is supported fully by user fees collected from passenger tickets and aircraft fuel sales.
• The supplemental funding source was enhanced by an additional one-billion-dollar appropriation, authorized by the President’s signature on HR 1625, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.
• There are no local or state taxes used to accomplish this project.

The project funds are expected to be received next year, and engineering and construction could begin in 2020, as well. The project involves contracting with American Electric Power to lower the height of the existing high voltage lines down to approximately half of their existing height. This phase one project will:

• Improve the safety of both incoming and outgoing aircraft on the primary runway (east/west).
• Will save the city the operational costs to support the warning lights associated with the power lines.
• The completion of this phase of the project will allow for the recovery of the use of existing runway and the extension of new runway of a total new usable surface of 2,400 feet that creates 7,500 feet of total east/west runway in the future.

Details of the project will be forthcoming.

The City of Warsaw is committed to the airport improvements necessary to facilitate the jet traffic that supports our local industry.

We are most thankful for the hard work of the Board of Aviation Commissioners, Airport Manager Nick King, Ken Ross from NGC Consultants, Congressman Jim Banks, Senator Todd Young, Senator Mike Braun and former Senator Joe Donnelly.