Airport project not slowed by 2020’s turbulence
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Updates to the Marshalltown Municipal Airport are still on track for completion in 2021 despite a challenging year.
By this time next year, airport manager Stephen Valbracht hopes the new 12,000-square-foot hangar and accompanying new terminal will be built and in use.
"The hangar is the real need. The reason we're doing the project is the existing hangars are not big enough for typical corporate aircraft," Valbracht said.
The new terminal will be roughly the same size of the existing one, though it will be updated. One of the most notable updates is the addition of more bathrooms, Valbracht said.
The existing terminal will be subsequently torn down.
"The city council decided it made the most sense when constructing the hangar to take advantage of lower costs to build a terminal while the construction crew was on site," the airport manager said. "It also allowed us to leverage federal and state funds."
The estimated cost of the new hangar, terminal, site work and new vault for electrical infrastructure is $3.1 million. The city has agreed to pay approximately $1.7 million toward the project by borrowing from general obligation bonds. The rest of the costs are being covered by the Federal Aviation Association and Iowa Department of Transportation.
In September, the DOT added another $120,000 toward the project for a rotating beacon and other site improvements through the fiscal year 2021 State Airport Development Program.
Van Maanen Electric of Newton is preparing the groundwork for all of the facility's main electrical infrastructure. The crew is awaiting a prefabricated vault which is being constructed in Wisconsin. Vaults house the electrical network underground and allow for easy access to electrical workers. The utility work will continue through the winter.
Significant site work is expected to begin next summer. Garling Construction of Belle Plaine is the general contractor. CGA Consultants of Ames designed the project.
The airport is used for corporate and private travel but Valbracht said the biggest beneficiary of the airport's improvements will be residents of Marshalltown.
"If someone wants to look at doing business in Marshalltown and they have a typical sized corporate jet and are going to spend the night we have nowhere to put them," he said. "They fly to Newton. That doesn't look good for the community. For citizens it's a huge benefit to make sure we can actually handle aircraft for folks who want to do business in the community."
Mayor Joel Greer, who is also a pilot, said he is excited to see the airport brought up to date with facilities in other communities of similar size like Dubuque, Mason City and Council Bluffs.
"I think about the Menards team when they were looking at building a new building they flew in their corporate team. If they had not been impressed by their first impression of people coming out to look that over, they might not have decided to invest in Marshalltown," Greer said. "Nobody can measure it. I just know it's a good rate of return on investment when you're trying to make the town grow."
The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down air travel for much of the public yet Valbracht has observed an increase in private flights.
As for the impact of the derecho on the Marshalltown Municipal Airport, Valbracht said it was the first major wind event in his 11-year tenure where no aircraft was damaged. However there was damage to several hangars. The direction of the wind lessened the damage to some degree according to the manager. No repairs relating to the derecho have started yet but the derecho will not impact the timeline on the upcoming improvement projects.
"Of the 42 hangar doors, the wind only directly hit one of the hangar doors that it caused significant damage to," he said. "We have one big hangar door with significant damage and the smaller hangars with some damage."
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Contact Joe Fisher at jfisher@timesrepublican.com