Yet another grant is coming to the city of Emporia for ongoing improvements to the Municipal Airport.
This week, the Kansas Airport Improvement Program announced a $75,000 grant for paving materials so the airport’s main runway can extend to 5,002 feet. Public Works Director Dean Grant tells KVOE News the 5,000-foot length is significant from a commercial perspective, but the city actually wants a longer runway than that.
Getting to 5,500 or 5,600 feet opens the prospect of more corporate jets to land safely in Emporia under warmer or wetter conditions than is currently allowed with the existing runway length of 4,999 feet.
Grant says work is starting soon on other projects at the airport, including new lights.
Planning work is underway on how to extend the runway to 5,002 feet and what impacts that work may have on the facility. Grant says the goal is to do both the runway and lighting projects at the same time, but he says it could be rushing things to have the runway planning done by next month.
Last year, the federal government announced a better than $700,000 grant for a new visual guidance system and navigation aids, along with rebuilt guidance signs and new runway lighting. That followed $13,000 strictly for COVID-19 relief and several state and federal grants for improvements in 2020.
