PORT ANGELES — Port of Port Angeles commissioners have unanimously approved a $245,514 professional services agreement with Century West Engineering to design four hangar sites at William R. Fairchild International Airport.
Currently, the airport is 100 percent occupied and expansion will provide highly sought-after hangar space, officials said.
A Federal Aviation Association Airport Improvement Program Grant is funding 90 percent of the cost of the design, and site preparation for the hangar project and the port is contributing the remaining 10 percent. Design of the actual hangars will be covered in a future project phase.
The hangar site design was one of 17 projects Director of Engineering Chris Hartman presented to the commissioners as part of a proposed 2024 capital projects plan.
“This is your first look at the draft budget. There’s time to move projects around,” he told commissioners on Tuesday before they took action at a special meeting.
The 2024 capital projects budget included five-year and a 20-year capital improvement plans that covered long-range investments and expenditures going into 2028.
Hartman said projects were prioritized based on requirements for meeting regulatory compliance; ones to which the port had already committed; need for critical maintenance to prevent further costly repairs; or were of strategic importance for jobs, a positive return on port investment, environmental benefit or preventative maintenance.
A total of $7.8 million in grants will cover more than half of the costs in the proposed $14.2 million 2024 capital projects budget. The remaining $6.4 million would come from the port.
Repair and improvements to the port’s Intermodal Handling and Transfer Facility, which handles about 60.5 million board-feet of logs per year, is at the top of the list. That work is necessary to meet state Department of Ecology Administrative Order and Industrial Stormwater General Permit benchmarks. The $10.8 million project has an estimated completion date of December 2026.
Also on the proposed 2024 plan is development work on the $11 million Marine Trade Center; structural repairs to aging Terminals 1, 2 and 3; repairs to the roof of the airport terminal and resurfacing the taxiway; and replacing security cameras and lighting at the marine terminal, Boat Haven and John Wayne Marina.
The port received a $343,000 state Recreation and Conservation Office grant to replace the John Wayne Marina’s wooden floating boat launch, which is more than 35 years old, with a floating metal system.
Airport and marina manager Jon Picker reported that resurfacing of the runways at the airport had been completed. Grooving is scheduled to start Sept. 27 and will continue until at least Oct. 5. On Oct. 6, the airport will be closed for painting.
Picker said he anticipated all work will be completed in late October or early November.
Some of the completed work on the runway can be seen in this video: tinyurl.com/89abtwav.
The commissioners next meet at a special meeting on Oct. 3.
________
Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at Paula.Hunt@soundpublishing.com
