Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Airport board taking hard look at vision, goals for facility. Evansville Regional Airport

EVANSVILLE — Leaders at Evansville Regional Airport are taking a hard look at their vision and goals for the facility.

The airport's board and managers met Monday for the second of three long-range planning sessions at Innovation Pointe in Downtown Evansville. The University of Southern Indiana's Center for Applied Research is facilitating the process.

The airport's leaders have done long-range planning before, said Airport Marketing Director Dianna Kissel, but those plans have tended to focus on specific projects. This effort, she said, is more all-encompassing.

"Because the (airline) industry and the region and everything has changed so dramatically in the past couple of years, it makes sense to do this now," Kissel said.

"All aspects of the airport are on the table."

Since the planning process isn't yet complete, Kissel said, it's too early to say exactly what the end result will be. But at Monday's session, discussion included topics such as:

Comparing Evansville Regional Airport to peer facilities based on certain performance metrics;

Determining what rate of passenger growth is realistic to expect; and

How to get regional and statewide partners to embrace and financially support the facility.

    The board's next scheduled meeting is Oct. 24. By the end of that meeting, Kissel said, the airport's leaders expect to have some long-term goals in place.

    The planning session was preceded by a business meetingwhere Cynthiana, Ind.-based contractor Blankenberger Brothers was awarded two contracts related to a federally-mandated runway project that will shift the airport's main runway toward the northeast and away from U.S. 41.

    Blankenberger was the lowest bidder on both projects. The contractor bid $1.7 million to realign Indiana 57. It also bid $5.6 million to realign Oak Hill and Millersburg roads and to reconfigure the intersection of Kansas Road and Indiana 57.

    The runway project's engineer, R.W. Armstrong & Assoc., said both of Blankenberger's bids came in below the engineering estimates for the work.

    The entire cost of the runway project is estimated at $60 million, 95 percent of which will be covered by Federal Aviation Administration grants.

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