Airport at a crossroads - again

The Kalispell City Council faces a showdown this spring over what to do with Kalispell City Airport.

It’s an old question for one of Montana’s oldest general aviation airports: Close it, upgrade it or move it, and how best to do it?

Over several decades, aviation engineers, city, state and federal officials, pilots and neighbors with noise complaints and safety concerns all have weighed in, with no resolution.

“We’ve been discussing this for an incredible amount of time,” said Jim Atkinson, a council member since 1988. “It’s time to make a decision, get this off dead-center and voted on.”

Council member Phil Guiffrida III, who took office in January, echoed that sentiment. “Kicking the can down the road must stop,” he said about the 83-year-old airport in his south Kalispell ward.

Everyone is waiting for the completion of a master plan update by Stelling Engineers, a $97,000 study started in 2010 and funded mostly by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The study should be done this month.

It will provide a recommended airport layout plan and let council members try to settle the issue in April and May. Five final options for Kalispell City Airport are on the table:

 Do nothing and close the airport as it deteriorates over the next five to 10 years.

 Close it and move tenants and operations to Glacier Park International Airport, eight miles north.

 Upgrade it to meet B-I design standards with all local funding for minimal safety gains.

 Upgrade it to meet B-II design standards with federal funding, as recommended by a 1999 master plan.

 Move it to a site near West Reserve Drive and West Spring Creek Road and build it to B-II design standards with federal funding.

KALISPELL’S PAST actions toward a B-II upgrade, as recommended by the 1999 master plan, are coloring today’s debate.

And given millions of dollars at stake, Guiffrida said he wonders just how much wiggle room the City Council really has to make a decision.

“From all the research I’ve done, our hands are tied,” Guiffrida said during a tour of the airport last week.

“The decision to expand this airport was made from 2003 to 2005. They set the wheels in motion ... To try to do anything else, the liability on the city and taxpayer is great.”

KALISPELL HAS faced this question before.

Over the last 32 years, nearly a dozen studies have looked at what to do with the airport or how to do it.

That includes a 1979 mini-master plan, a 1993 neighborhood plan, a 1996 airport and athletic complex plan, a 1996 airport layout plan, the 1999 master plan, a 2001 site selection study and 2002 environmental assessment.

The master plan, also funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, recommended a B-II upgrade at the airport very similar to what’s being considered as part of the pending master plan update.

Such an upgrade could make the airport eligible for funding through the federal Airport Improvement Program, which gets its money from airline ticket fees and aviation fuel taxes.

Then as now, the proposed B-II upgrade primarily would relocate the runway almost one thousand feet to the south, widen the runway and taxiways and increase the separation between them and enlarge runway protection zones at either end of the airport.

Kalispell City Airport is home mostly to smaller A-I aircraft, with a few B-I and one B-II aircraft.

B-I and B-II aircraft have approach speeds of 91 to 121 knots and wingspans up to 49 and 79 feet, respectively. A-I aircraft have approach speeds less than 91 knots and wingspans under 49 feet.

The airport does not meet most B-I design and safety standards and is crowded by homes and businesses to the north and east, with two, 300-foot KGEZ radio towers protruding into what should be protected airspace to the south.

WITH A MASTER plan, site selection study and environmental assessment in place by 2003, Kalispell started moving forward with a B-II upgrade.

The city entered 20-year leases for space at the airport and sold off $1 million of land to buy land needed for the upgrade.

It created an Airport Tax Increment Finance District and borrowed $2 million for improvements: a new parking ramp and taxiways that would align with the B-II upgrade, utilities, fencing, a security gate, and the $750,000 purchase of Red Eagle Aviation to bring it inside the fence, where it now leases space as the fixed-based operator.

IN ALL, about $3.5 million has been spent on airport-related projects, studies and land purchases since 1999.

The plan was that federal funding for a B-II upgrade would pay for 90 percent of the project cost, provide about $150,000 a year for airport maintenance, and reimburse the city for an estimated $3.1 million of the $3.5 million it had spent.

The state aeronautics division would have kicked in another 5 percent of the project’s cost.

But the project hit a snag. John Stokes refused to sell or move the two KGEZ radio towers, asking the city to pay millions of dollars more than a $670,000 appraisal.

Several others refused to sell property and the City Council refused to condemn any land. Eventually the environmental assessment expired, putting the project on hold.

Facing controversy, the city opted to do the pending master plan update to make sure it is on the right track, rather than just redo its environmental assessment.

Getting the radio towers under contract to be lowered or moved remains a key first step for any federally-funded upgrade at the airport.

Stokes later lost ownership of the towers in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Charles Harball, Kalispell’s city attorney and interim city manager, said it’s believed that the new owner of the radio towers and the other property owners who would need to sell for the B-II upgrade all are willing to negotiate.

That’s something Stelling Engineers has explored with the property owners as part of the master plan update process.

Any option that would move or close Kalispell City Airport would require the city to buy out its leases, an expense estimated at $4.8 million.

And unless Kalispell upgrades the airport to meet B-II design standards using the improvements and the land it has already bought, it will forego potential federal reimbursement for an estimated $3.1 million.

COUNCIL MEMBERS are starting to speak out about the looming decision.

Bob Hafferman has expressed tentative support to upgrade the airport to meet B-I design standards, at an estimated development cost of $2.7 million, all paid by the city.

In a memo to other council members last week, Hafferman said he favors using money from the tax increment finance district to pay for the project.

“My hopes: The airport remains an asset rehabilitated with TIF [funds] and functions as a small-plane airfield just as it has in the past,” he said.

OTHERS STILL hope to see the upgrade to B-II design standards. That’s the option supported by Kalispell City Airport Advisory Board members and Airport Manager Fred Leistiko.

According to Stelling’s draft update, the estimated development cost for a B-II upgrade at the airport is $10.1 million, with a local share of $505,000 for the city.

In addition to other B-II upgrades, Leistiko hopes to see the recommended airport layout plan move the runway 1,000 feet south and then extend it to the south from a length of 3,600 to 4,200 feet.

Red Eagle Aviation and its aircraft potentially would move from the north end of the runway south to mid-runway.

There’s also talk about trying to get federal approval to build a helicopter pad at the southern end of the new runway, moving some of the loudest and most-complained-about aircraft away from homes and businesses to the north.

“That would take care of this airport for forever, actually,” Leistiko said. “We’d never do anything other than maintain it for another 50 years.”

A longer runway might not be needed to make a B-II upgrade eligible for federal funding, because the existing runway meets 75 percent of fleet needs.

Any B-II upgrade would require significant land purchases and could lead to more air traffic and larger, faster planes at the airport as some critics allege, some of which are already using the airport now, Harball said.

Moving the runway south also would move the airport’s landing pattern farther south and put airplanes landing and taking off at the north end of the runway much higher when flying over the city, reducing noise and improving safety, Harball said.

SOME OPPONENTS continue to speak against any expansion or even improvements at the airport’s present location.

Scott Davis, spokesman for Quiet Skies, forwarded members an email last week asking them to tell the mayor and council that they want the airport moved or left as is.

“No FAA funding for a B-II airport at this location or upgrading it to a B-I at this location. No upgrading, no aircraft and helicopter schools,” the email said.

HAVING TAKEN a flight over the airport last week, Guiffrida said he questions that Quiet Skies assessment. Many studies have raised safety concerns about the current configuration.

“If you’re really going to look at this to reduce noise and increase safety and security, then the option of upgrading this and moving it south is way better than leaving it the way it is. A significantly better option,” Guiffrida said.

The desire expressed among some to simply close the airport and put its nearly 80 acres to “better use” is not realistic, given the cost of lease buy-outs and the local economy, Guiffrida said.

“If we had a developer saying I’ll purchase this property for the leases and pay the city for its property, that may change everything,” Guiffrida said. “The fact of the matter is there’s no one here to do that.”

Some are speaking in favor of the airport as the best use for that land.

“I’m pretty much convinced that the airport is a boon for our community, a conduit for a lot of businesses to create jobs and a conduit for transportation,” Atkinson said.

“I think we have a golden opportunity with FAA funding to make it a better airport and do a good job there and help the community sound-wise, safety-wise and economic engine-wise,” he said.

Guiffrida, like Atkinson and other council members, said that he’s still trying to work through the details and waiting for the master plan update’s recommended airport layout plan.

“We’re taking this very seriously. We’ll be looking at this from 10,000 feet for what’s best for the city of Kalispell,” Guiffrida said.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.