Proposed airport sparks interest in Wellington

By Steven Olson
Correspondent

Economic activity of $53.43 million over five years--that's the attraction of the proposed airport that may or may not be located near Wellington.

That's why people like Town Administrator Larry Lorentzen and former town board member Reggie Kemp like it. The proposed airport could replace the Fort Collins Downtown Airport, which closed in December 2006.

Kemp said he doesn't know the exact numbers, but added, "I am supportive of anything that would bring revenue into the town, which it badly needs."

The $53.43 million figure over five years is in Appendix G of a feasibility study prepared earlier this year. Appendices do not appear with the main study posted on the town's web site, however. Appendix G is bound in a separate report, which serves as an adjunct to the main study prepared by Denver consultant Carter & Burgess.

Travis Vallin, state aeronautical director for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said the $53.43 million figure is the projected amount of economic development an airport would generate.

"Once you have an airport, you'd be amazed at the number of planes coming in," said Vallin. "We had a survey, and 70 to 80 percent of people said that right out of the box Wellington would be their airport of choice simply because it'd be close to their business or whatever."

Vallin, however, qualified how economic activity is calculated.

"This doesn't mean $53 million would go right into the airport's coffers," he said. "It means that this is the kind of [economic] impact it would have on Wellington."

The economic forecast includes all phases of construction, payroll, maintenance and other operating activities.

But there are some who don't like the idea of an airport at all, and they've been showing up at recent meetings in Wellington.

They include people like Charlie Baca and Gladys Russell, who live north of town near some of the sites under consideration for the airport. During an Oct. 10 meeting at the T-Bar Inn with Larimer County Commissioner Kathay Rennels, Russell raised the specter of noise from the airport and lights from a control tower shining in her windows at night. Baca feared a location for the airport has already been decided.

Others packed a town board meeting on Oct. 23, telling the elected officials they would never sell their land for an airport.

To better explain how and when an airport might come about, the board agreed to schedule a public discussion early next year. Once the date is set, it will appear on the town board agenda on the web site at www.townofwellington.com.

Wellington has been criticized in letters to the editor for deciding to build an airport without asking citizens if they want it and if they want to pay for it.

So far, money has been spent only on the feasibility study. The Colorado Department of Transportation provided $40,000 for the study, and Wellington contributed $5,000. The local pilots' association contributed another $5,000.

The study suggested four possible sites for an airport within the town's growth management area:

• North of County Road 70 and west of County Road 9
• North of County Road 66 and west of County Road 9
• North of County Road 68 and west of County Road 9
• North of County Road 70 and east of County Road 5

None of these sites has been settled upon, Lorentzen said.

Further studies are contingent on the Federal Aviation Administration admitting Wellington into the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, or NPIAS, which would make federal funding available. That's important because the Carter-Burgess study suggests the town could seek federal funding of nearly $13 million for an airport that might cost nearly $19 million.

"We'll sit down with a couple of FAA people and see if Wellington is eligible for the NPIAS system, which I think it will be," Vallin said. That would probably be in 30 days, he estimated.

After that, Wellington would have to meet with CDOT about the possibility of getting grant money to do a site selection study. A site selection study, Vallin said, would probably cost about $150,000.

In response to criticism about not involving the public, Lorentzen said surveying landowners before talking to pilots about an airport site makes no sense. "The sites were picked by consultants," he said. "Some of the pilots who had flown over the sites made recommendations, but you have to have a site before you start talking to landowners about it."

His best guess is that the town might be ready to acquire land in 2013 and build in 2014, if it builds an airport at all.

Vallin explained that getting funding for a new airport is complicated. "I'd say it'll take about seven to 10 years," he said.

Elaborating, he said that a good chunk of the money to buy any land must come from the FAA, and that funding stream is scheduled to be reauthorized by Congress this year. "FAA has no fiscal bill for '08," Vallin said.

The agency has to undergo two reauthorizations, he said, and the difference could be as much as $40 million.

In the feasibility study, the airport is projected to cost $18.7 million with the possibility that $12.9 million could be paid by the federal government and $800,000 picked up by CDOT, leaving $5 million for local and private funding.

As for the kinds of planes flying into the airport, Lorentzen said they would mostly be the single-engine propeller planes used by small businesses. The runway length is projected to be 6,000 feet, which is necessary because of the altitude and because the airport would occasionally have to handle twin-engine propeller planes and the rare mid-sized business jet, but those would probably be infrequent.

The planned runway would be too short for a commercial carrier.

"You'd need a runway about 8,000 to 10,000 feet long if you were going to put big iron down on it," Vallin said.

The Carter & Burgess study says the runway is supposed to handle planes weighing 12,000 and 30,000 pounds--too light to be a commercial carrier.

"You are not going to see something like Centennial Airport," said Vallin, describing a facility south of Denver that handles large business flights. "This is going to be a small airport that serves the community."