Evansville – Evansville Regional Airport (EVV) announced plans to temporarily close the main runway during the spring/summer of 2014 to complete the final phase of their multi-year, federally mandated Runway Safety Area (RSA) construction project. Flights will continue by using the North/South runway while construction is occurring.
The project, required by federal statute to be completed by the end of 2015, will shift Runway 4-22 approximately 2400’ to the northeast. This shift will be done to meet FAA runway safety standards by eliminating the current intersection with runway 18-36 and moving it further away from Hwy 41 and St. George Rd.
Construction is scheduled to begin on Wednesday March 5, 2014 and is planned to last through September 2014. This will be over a year ahead of the federally mandated deadline of December 31, 2015. CHA Consulting is serving as engineer for the project and WB Koester Construction, LLC is serving as the prime contractor for this portion of the project. Construction will be conducted 20 hours per day, six days a week (Mon.- Sat.) to help minimize the impact to passengers and airlines. Multiple phases of preparatory work have already been completed to support this large project. Those phases include: relocation of Hwy 57, closing a portion of Oak Hill Rd & rerouting it to Kansas Rd., improvements to the Kansas Rd./Hwy 57 intersection by increasing it to 6 lanes from 2, adding two roundabouts in the area, relocating a railroad track, relocation of numerous utilities, reconfiguring taxiways, transfering over 1.1 million cubic yards of dirt to the runway site. In an effort to be as green as possible, the concrete being taken up is to be crushed on-site and recycled as fill for the new construction.
“EVV and the airlines have been working together along with the FAA for the past several years to develop a workable plan to offer the same great service and capacity that we currently have as we work through this necessary construction project,” said Director of Marketing & Air Service Development Dianna Page. “We want to minimize the impact to our passengers as much as possible during construction.” During construction, the Airport will operate exclusively on its North South Runway (18-36) for both commercial & general aviation traffic. Flight patterns will change as a result. Improvements were made to this runway in preparation for the project including GPS instrument approaches and taxiway improvements.
The main runway (4-22) should be open for departures and visual approaches as early as August 1, 2014. Instrument approaches to this runway should be certified by mid September 2014.
This project will be completed ahead of the scheduled deadline due to the great collaboration of all the stakeholders involved, including the airport, airlines, FAA, local residents & passengers, business community as well as our local, state and federal elected officials. The total cost of this project is estimated to be $67 million of which 90% is federally funded and the remaining 10% from state and local funds.
“We are glad that we are entering the final phase of this project and completing this important safety mandate more than a year ahead of schedule,” said Executive Director of the airport Doug Joest. “Futhermore, we have leveraged almost $62 million in federal and state funds into many construction jobs that not only made needed improvements to the airport but also to the roads and other infrastructure around the airport.”
For more information and project updates, visit www.flyevv.com or visit us on facebook or twitter @Flyevv
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About Evansville Regional Airport
Evansville Regional Airport (EVV) is in its 85th year of service to the Southwestern Indiana area and currently offers non-stop flights to 4 major hub cities with American Eagle and Delta Airlines. Facilities include 3 runways, 10 carrier gates, 4 jet bridges, spacious terminal with free wifi and parking lot to accommodate 1000 + cars.
