Yes, Pekin has an airport. Here's the plan for its $1.4 million construction project
A $1.4 million construction project will allow the city-owned Pekin Municipal Airport more capacity for planes.
And Pekin will only need to pay about 5% of the project costs, according to Pekin Municipal Airport interim manager Michael Cruce.
“The state pays for 5%, and the federal government pays 90%,” he explained. “So, we’re getting a huge piece of infrastructure for pennies on the dollar.”
The project will consist of adding 10 one-plane hangars to the airport, Cruce said. Increased traffic at the airport over the past few years necessitated the expansion of storage services.
“We currently have 20 T-hangars in the airport and those are completely filled,” he said. “There's been a waiting list and we've typically had about 20 people waiting to rent a hangar. That waiting list has been that long for at least the past five or six years. Basically what that has shown is, with the increased traffic and the way that we've improved the infrastructure, people want to base their aircraft here.”
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The Pekin City Council voted recently to award the project to Leander Construction. Cruce hopes construction will begin in the late winter or early spring of 2023, and anticipates that it will be completed by the end of next year. More hangar capacity will bring more revenue to the city through more hangar rentals and more fuel sales, he said.
Pekin Municipal Airport is a general aviation facility that services small jet aircraft and turbo propeller corporate aircraft. Cruce estimated that the airport generates $9 million in revenue for the city annually and sees several hundred departures and arrivals in a given week.
In 2020, the Illinois Department of Transportation named the facility the state’s General Aviation Airport of the Year. More information is available at ci.pekin.il.us.
This article originally appeared on Pekin Daily Times: Pekin Municipal Airport readies for $1.4 million construction project
