FAA will fund runway extension

Well, that worked itself out.

After a month-long effort to find funding for Portland Municipal Airport’s runway extension, Portland Mayor John Boggs learned Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration will pay for all of it.

The FAA decided to pay for all pending projects it has approved for this year and next year after it received additional funding from COVID-19 relief stimulus packages passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last month. Jason Clearwaters of Butler Fairman & Seufert, Portland Aviation Board’s engineering firm, confirmed to Boggs the airport project qualified for total FAA funding.

“Unless something changes, the federal government will pay for everything,” Boggs told Portland Redevelopment Commission at its meeting Friday.

The commission also voted to award $50,000 to Arts Place for its Legacy Capital Campaign and gave an additional $6,550 to Portland Main Street Connect for the first phase of its downtown revitalization plan.

Boggs was at the meeting, which was held by video chat via Zoom, to request reimbursement funds from the commission.

He instead surprised members by informing them he didn’t need their money.

Last month, a request for the commission to pay $266,400 toward the airport project was tabled because commission members wanted Boggs and the aviation board to seek funding from other city and county funds.

That $266,400 would have been used to pay Indiana Department of Environmental Management mitigation fee for enclosing 555 feet of Alexander Ditch as part of the project. The funds were expected to be reimbursed through the FAA and Indiana Department of Transportation and then used to pay for the city’s 5% portion of the estimated $4.4 million project.

Boggs said the city already paid for the ditch’s mitigation credit — it will be reimbursed — so construction can begin as soon as possible. Boggs said the airport’s new 5,500-foot runway, which is planned to be extended from its current length of 4,000 feet, will be open and operational by summer 2021.

The redevelopment commission had previously committed $150,000 to the runway extension project. That contribution has been put on hold until the funding from the FAA officially comes through.

In other business, after deliberating about how much money to give, commission members Joe Johnston, Dave Teeter, Rusty Inman and Reda Theurer-Miller, absent Mike Simons, voted to give Arts Place $50,000 to go toward its $2.4 million campaign to overhaul its Portland building and services.

Arts Place requested $50,000 to $100,000 from the commission at its March 6 meeting. That vote was tabled until Friday. After the commission found out it likely won’t have to contribute any money to the airport project, members said they were more willing to give money.

Johnston originally wanted to give Arts Place the full $100,000, but the other members talked him down to a smaller amount, settling at $50,000.

Other commission members had concerns over funding a project outside of the city’s tax increment financing (TIF) district. However, such funding is allowed if the project is deemed to have an impact on the TIF district. Johnston pointed out previous funding awards in the past, including $150,000 for Portland Water Park.

That detail helped convince Teeter, and the commission voted to award the funds.

The commission also awarded an additional $6,550 for removing grates in the downtown area where trees were previously planted and filling in those spaces with either concrete or pavers. The trees had been cut down over the last several years.

Theurer-Miller, who abstained from the vote because she is involved with Main Street Connect, gave an update on phase one of its downtown revitalization project, which the commission gave $58,513.78 toward at its last meeting.

She said the organization is in the process of finding a logo to put on the city’s new benches and that new flags will be erected by Memorial Day around downtown, among other updates.

The commission, which held a meeting on Zoom for the first time, has another scheduled for April 24.