The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
More good news for terminal renovation
By Katherine Nettles
The plan to renovate and dramatically improve the terminal at the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) appears to be a money magnet. A surprise $18 million grant from CARES Act funding announced in April sewed up the project and gave Gunnison County a comfort level with moving ahead quickly with the multi-million-dollar renovation project. Last week the county officially heard it would receive another $8 million in federal Airport Improvement Program money for the terminal project. The county had expected about half that.
The latest contribution of “Entitlement and Discretionary Funds” from the Federal Aviation Administration added another $8,011,760 to airport funds for the year. The FAA had indicated that Gunnison County would receive $2 million in Airport Improvement Program (AIP) discretionary funds and $2.1 million in AIP Entitlement funds as part of a $1.2 billion grant package that includes 405 airports across the United States.
But ultimately, “[the FAA] awarded an extra $3.9 million, giving us total Discretionary of $5.9 million. So the $2.1 million Entitlement plus $5.9 million Discretionary is the $8,011,761 million that was recently announced,” explained county manager Matthew Birnie.
The total federal financial contributions for the project, including from the CARES Act, and AIP Entitlement and Discretionary funding is now more than $26 million.
County officials have set aside $4 million for operations and maintenance to stabilize the airport through the industry’s COVID-19 crisis, leaving $22 million for the project. The original estimate was for a more modest, $14 million project, a first phase to address the most pressing issues of electrical, mechanical and security updates.
The new influx of funds will allow the renovation to proceed full-scale and debt-free. The improvements include a new parking lot and entrance, updated mechanical and electrical systems, updated security facilities and new passenger holding areas. Birnie reported last week that the design planning part of the project is almost finished.
“This is a huge deal,” explained GUC assistant manager Stephanie Williams of the latest windfall, noting that generally the FAA only chooses to fund runways, ramps and lighting improvements while leaving infrastructure to the airlines.
A complete listing of grants is available on the FAA website at https://www.faa.gov/airports/aip/2020_aip_grants/media/FY20-AIP-Grants-Announced.pdf.
