Work session to focus on airport, south Kalispell
The Kalispell City Council tonight will discuss potential options for Kalispell City Airport.
Last year, the city commissioned CTA Architects Engineers to formulate a plan and land survey to identify options on how to deal with the city airport, which has been stagnant and without maintenance for years. The plan, released in January, produced five options for the airport, although CTA has outlined only three as immediately feasible.
The first option includes leaving the airport as is operating the facility on city funding. At a public hearing in January, CTA Associate Principal Director Wayne Freeman said the city would lose approximately $1 million over five years and an additional $300,000 each year if the city decided to keep operating the airport with general fund money. Maintenance costs would eat up most of that expense, which are not eligible for tax increment financing from the south Kalispell district.
The second option would be to sell the airport and hope to attract private development. The CTA report showed that buying out the current leases on the property would cost nearly $3 million up front, but the property could eventually be developed using tax increment financing and broaden the city’s tax base, as well as add jobs through private development.
The third and most contentious option for the city airport is to request funding from the Federal Aviation Administration. At the January hearing, Freeman said this option would require minimal work, moving the taxiway just five feet farther away from the runway.
But this option would require the city to reopen conversations with the FAA that fell through in 2013 when Kalispell residents voted down a referendum that would have brought the airport up to higher federal standards, with the federal agency covering 90 percent of the cost.
If the city airport does become eligible for FAA funding, the city would receive $150,000 a year for capital improvement projects.
The work session begins at 7 p.m. today at City Hall, 201 First Ave. E.
Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.