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Airport Awarded $2.8M for Hangar
This was in Saturday’s (August 20th, 2016) Herald and News
Written By: Gerry O’Brien, H&N Editor
The Crater Lake-Klamath Falls Regional Airport was awarded a $2.8 million grant from the Oregon Transportation Commission Friday. The commission met in Klamath Falls.
The money, which comes from the non-transportation arm of ConnectOregon, will be used to build an aircraft maintenance facility to service commercial airliners.
Airport Director John Barsalou, who had been working on the grant for well over a year, said that the city of Klamath Falls will have to provide a match of $1.4 million.
“So it is a $4 million project,” Barsalou said, “which includes a 150-foot by 200-foot fabric building, plus a parking lot on the airport property.” The city council may take up the rest of the funding at its next council meeting.
“We hope to have designs done over the winter into next spring and begin construction sometime in the summer,” Barsalou said.
PenAir aircraft
The hangar may mainly be used for PenAir aircraft if PenAir agrees to rent space in it. PenAir is set to return commercial airline service to Klamath Falls Oct. 5. It plans to have an average of two flights a day in a 30-seater aircraft between Klamath Falls and Portland International airport.
The hangar will have a wash station for aircraft, something that is not readily available in the region.
“We’re also talking with Klamath Community College to contract with them about using the hangar for their aircraft maintenance training program,” Barsalou said.
“It’s exciting because there will be some construction jobs created and it will be part of the seven to 10 jobs created when PenAir lands here,” he said.
The Oregon Transportation Commission approved a total of 39 multimodal projects from around the state for $49.51 millon in funding, provided by the ConnectOregon program. The airport made it just under the wire at project 38.
Also making the funding list was Lake County’s airport for $205,555 for airport apron rehabilitation and beacon safety.
Dedicated to non-highway projects, ConnectOregon was first approved by the Oregon legislature in 2005 and has funded more than 180 marine/ports, aviation, public transit, bike/pedestrian and rail projects around the state with more than $380 million in funds generated by lottery-backed bonds. To see details about the program and the projects, visit the ConnectOregon website.
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