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By the end of this month, the runway 9-27 obstruction mitigation project - also known as the AEP power line lowering project - east of the Warsaw Municipal Airport will come to an end.
Efforts to lower the power lines took 39 years to make it a reality and approximately $7 million, most from a federal grant.
Speaking on the project at the Warsaw Board of Aviation Commissioners meeting Monday, CHA Consulting Aviation Project Manager Mary Kerstein said the surveyor will be out Tuesday, collecting foundation information for the new towers that is required for the grant to be closed out. The grant has to be closed out by the end of June, so Kerstein said they’re in the process of pulling together all the grant paperwork and final closeout documents.
Since not all the documents were available to the Aviation Commissioners Monday, she asked the board to approve an amount not to exceed $626,091.75, with the local share being $31,305.59, to cover all of their bases. Kerstein said they’re still finalizing a final invoice from AEP.
Robert LaFayette, CHA Consulting, said, “There’s still work to be done on this project that will go past this board meeting, but that work needs to be completed prior to the end of the month. So, we wouldn’t be able to wait until next month’s board meeting to get this approved and work for us to get all the grant paperwork and money paid out requests to the FAA. So what we’re asking for is the not-to-exceed value of the original contract. We won’t be going over that, but we do need to get that approved so that any work that needs to be done prior to the end of the month, we can do that and still get everything to the FAA on time and get everything paid.”
Kerstein pointed out that the FAA does require a five-year period of performance and the end of June is the end of the five years for this contract. “So that’s where this deadline is coming from,” she stated.
The board approved the not-to-exceed $626,091.75 - what’s left of the grant. Airport Manager Nick King said they are pretty sure the project will be $150,000-$160,000 under budget, but won’t know the final amount until all the invoices come in.
Kerstein then presented a CHA invoice for $4,083 for the runway 9-27 safety area, phase 1. The local share is $204.15. She said they received comments from the FAA for it and now “we’re just really trying to incorporate this into a final version of the report.” They’re looking to have it to the FAA by July. The board approved the invoice.
On the corporate taxiway E-1 rehabilitation/reconstruction, she said Phend & Brown came out May 31 and applied the final seat coat on the asphalt pavement. They have to wait about 30 days to do pavement markings. It was noticed there was a low spot, so Kerstein said CHA reached out to Phend & Brown about trying to correct that low spot.
Bid opening for the taxiway B rehabilitation was Thursday. Phend & Brown was the sole bidder on the project for $2,555,121.50. Kerstein said the bid amount was slightly over CHA’s engineer’s estimate. She said they submitted the bid to King and are still reviewing the bid for CHA to make its recommendation.
“With the deadline for FAA grants at the end of this month, we do have a couple action items associated with this,” she said, including a CHA invoice for $7,461.90 - with the local share being $373.09; the FAA grant application; and an independent fee estimate from Hanson’s for $4,000, with the local share being $200, that is needed for the grant application.
The board approved all three items presented.
A little later on the runway 9-27 rehabilitation, King told the board that he was successful in working with the county commissioners and the airport did receive the $500,000 from the county’s Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) fund that was budgeted for this year for the airport.
He wrote a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city and the county for the city to receive the funds, which the mayor and clerk-treasurer have to sign. The aviation board approved the MOU, so next the mayor will sign it and then King will present it to the county commissioners at their meeting June 17. He then has to go through the process of doing an additional appropriation.
“It’s been approved, we are for sure getting the money, we just have to go through the back-end paperwork to make sure everything is in the appropriate accounts so we can get this going,” King said. “We’re on a tight deadline to get all this done within this construction season.”
The aviation board reviewed the MOU before approving it 3-0. Board President Dan Robinson was absent.
Kerstein then presented three actions for the board to approve, which they did. Those included awarding the contract to Phend & Brown for the base bid covering the western third of runway 9-27 for $874,951.60; CHA’s task order for construction phase services for $101,852; and CHA invoice for $4,339.60 for work associated with the project.
The last thing Kerstein presented was on taxiway A for basis of design.
“So this task order is for preliminary design study to determine if taxiway A will be rehabilitated or reconstructed. So, we have been kind of going back and forth with the FAA and INDOT on the best way to approach this project, so we are going to do this preliminary design study,” she stated.
The CHA task order was for $99,500, with the local share being $4,975, for the preliminary design phases associated with the project.
The board approved to accept the task order with the caveat that it’s dependent on the grant funding being received.
The next Board of Aviation Commissioners meeting is tentatively scheduled for 5:15 p.m. July 8 in the council chambers at Warsaw City Hall.
