July 16--The Kerrville City Council and Kerr County commissioners will be asked next week to approve a $650,000 T-hangar project at the jointly-owned airport.
Airport board members voted Monday to seek resolutions of support from the city and county for a project to construct up to 12 new hangars. The board also voted to seek requests for proposals for a design-built contractor.
"We've been diligently working on this since February, and we are there now," said airport manager Bruce McKenzie.
McKenzie also told board members Monday that since he learned last month that the Texas Department of Transportation Aviation division approved the grant request to fund
90 percent of the T-hangar project, the amount of the grant has increased from $460,000 to $650,000.
Funds for the project come from Federal Aviation Administration funding and are being allocated to the Kerrville airport under a trial program. Usually, TxDOT Aviation projects are managed by the agencies, but this project will be managed by the local airport board to coordinate participation with the city and the county.
Specifically, the city has pledged to pave part of the project and the county to complete the site work. Both contribution are expected to reduce the overall cost of building the hangars.
A TxDOT official who spoke to the airport board several months ago indicated she was excited about trying to construct a project this way because it offers some new efficiencies and could ultimately save taxpayer dollars.
"I had a conversation with TxDOT Wednesday, and she said, 'if this works in Kerrville, we're going to spread this across the state,'" McKenzie said.
T-hangars are individual hangars for a single airplane named because of their shape, like the letter. The airport has 16 T-hangars, all of which currently are leased, and there is a waiting list of people who say they would rent one if one was available.
The proposal is to lease the new hangars for $295 per month with a discounted rate of $280 per month for those who pay a year in advance, generating about $40,320 annually in new revenue at the airport.
The project's current timeline calls for the resolutions to be presented for the county on July 22 and to the city on July 23. If approved by both owners, the next step would be to get approval from the Texas Transportation Commission on Sept. 26.
In the meantime, the airport board will begin seeking a contractor and could vote to hire someone as early as Sept. 16.
In a separate matter, the airport board will seek a variance from the city of Kerrville to a requirement to have a flood plain survey done before accepting the acquisition of about 14.5 acres of land from the former Kerrville Economic Development Foundation. The property to the west of the airport is adjacent to Texas 27 and undeveloped.
The foundation had purchased the land years ago in hopes of expanding parking for Mooney Aircraft, but the plane manufacturer has since ceased most operations.
McKenzie said acquiring the land would help clear the airport's displaced threshold for larger planes and that he would look to remove most of the trees from the property except right along the highway.
Ilse Bailey, attorney for the airport, said under city rules, transferring the ownership of the property would required an $8,000 flood plain study, but she has been working with city officials to get a waiver since the airport would never develop the land.
"We know it's not going to be developed, because it's going to be an airport for the rest of our lifetimes and probably the lifetimes after that," Bailey said.
The city council would have to grant the variance request and, if granted, the flood plain study would have to be done if the property ownership ever changed or if the airport sought to build on the site.
Copyright 2013 - Kerrville Daily Times, Texas
