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Date: 12/30/2020
WESTFIELD – At the Westfield Airport Commission’s Dec. 22 meeting, the commission discussed extending a lease for repairs with one of the airport’s hangars, updates to the airport’s minimum standards, and projects coming in 2021.
To start the meeting, Airport Manager Chris Willenborg welcomed the commission’s new member, Kate Phelon.
“On behalf the airport staff, Commissioner Phelon, we want to welcome you to the team, we look forward to working with you. She previously worked as the executive director of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce and really brings a great background in terms of partnership with the community,” he said.
As the first order of business, Willenborg discussed a lease extension with Ross Rectrix Aviation, which would allow them to continue their renovations on the hangar
“They do want to do additional renovations, however the total renovation would be up to $400,000, so they have requested that the current lease, which is set to expire in 2031, be extended 20 years from this point,” he said.
In order to approve the lease amendment, the amendment would have to go before the Westfield City Council because of the length of the lease.
“In order to do that, we would need to do a lease amendment, the commission would review it, the city council would vote to authorize the mayor to sign it because we are beyond 20 years now of the total lease time. There should not be any issues, this is a tenant investing money into an existing building at the airport,” he said.
Commission Chair William Gonet said he was in favor of additional improvements to the hangar.
“That building has been here as long as I can remember and it’s clearly in need of a serious spruce up. It’s not pleasing to the eye with our beautiful terminal next door. I’m looking forward to seeing some significant improvement on that,” he said.
The commission unanimously agreed to allow Willenborg to draft the amendment with the help of the city’s legal department.
During the meeting, Willenborg gave an update on his research into updating the airport’s minimum standards, which have not been updated since 1996.
“We’re in the process of trying to update those and we are working with two companies that specialize in airport minimum standards. I’m working now to get cost estimates on that, so hopefully by the next meeting we will have those costs,” he said.
As part of his Airport Operations report, Willenborg said the operation numbers were up for the year from 2019.
“We’re continuing to see an increase in operations. Year to date comparing May through November of 2019 and 2020 our operations are up 14 percent. We’re clearly going to pass 2019’s annual number, so we’re trending in the right direction in terms of aircraft operations,” he said.
One of the current projects the airport is currently working on is a noise mitigation program, but Willenborg said they are currently working on applying for a grant through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“This we need to get a new grant for. Right now, Jones-Payne Group is working with their team, we are going to be setting up a scoping meeting with the FAA, then they’ll put together a final scope of work and fee, we’ll have that reviewed, and then we get the signoff. We then have to apply for a grant by May 1 and hopefully in July or August we will get the grant,” he said.
The Westfield Airport Commission next meets on Jan. 14.