LITH airport improvements start next month
Starting next month, the Lake in the Hills airport will undergo work for improvements mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration.
In the last three years, the village bought 65 acres north and south of the airport for $2.9 million in order to move the taxiway farther from the runway and build a new aircraft apron, or parking area, said Fred Mullard, the village’s director of public works and airport manager.
Some of the earth-moving work began last year, and the first phase of paving the new taxiway will begin next month, Mullard said.
The work is expected to last about five years. There might be “short closures,” but no major disruption is expected for the 40,000 or so takeoffs and landings that take place every year, Mullard said.
FAA grant monies are expected to cover more than 90 percent of the improvements’ cost, and the rest will come from airport revenues, Mullard said. “The village does not use general fund revenues to operate or improve the airport,” he said.
The improvement plan, estimated at $23 million, included the realignment of Pyott Road.
On Thursday night, the village board approved a new five-year consulting contract for Hanson Professional Services in Oakbrook, which supervises the planning, design and construction of the airport improvements.
Hanson’s fees in 2010 totaled about $600,000, 97.5 percent of which was covered by FAA grants, Mullard said. The rest came from the airport fund, whose year-end balance was $239,000, he said.
The final phase of the project consists of widening the airport’s only runway, which runs east to west, from 50 to 100 feet to make up for the lack of a north-south runway, Mullard said. The FAA requires runways to be 75 feet wide, but going up to 100 feet would make landing with sideways winds much easier, he explained.
The Lake in the Hills airport was built in the 1950s as a private facility, and has been owned by the village since 1982. It was first approved for federal grants in 2002, and has received waivers from the FAA to postpone the improvements, Mullard said.