City Of Lake Wales issued the following announcement on Nov. 05.
LAKE WALES AIRPORT CONTINUES UPGRADES AT NO COST TO LOCAL TAXPAYERS
More significant upgrades are coming to Lake Wales Municipal Airport.
The good news is city taxpayers won’t have to pay for them.
The Federal Aviation Administration will foot the bill for a new apron at the airport in the coming months, and the Florida Department of Transportation is expected to cover the costs of a new fueling system at the city owned site.
City commissioners recently approved Hoyle Tanner and associates for professional engineering services for the apron work. That firm also oversaw an expansion of the airport’s main runway by over 1,000 feet several years ago which made the airport accessible to larger aircraft.
The current asphalt apron – considered generally as the area of an airport where the aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled or boarded, also commonly called the ramp area – is over 20 years old, and isn’t in a good enough shape to be rehabilitated so a brand new apron will be installed, city officials noted.
Teresa Allen, the city’s Director of Public and Support Services, said the upgrades were needed and come at an opportune time.
The grant money became available because the airport received a rural designation from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
“This is actually going to be a very good year for the airport,” Allen noted. “Our fuel system is 20 plus years old and won’t pass inspection again.”
A contract for just over $831,000 submitted by Ajax Paving to do the work – the lowest of five bids – was also recently approved by city commissioners.
Lake Wales has one of four airports in Polk County, along with Lakeland, Winter Haven and Bartow. Before the runway extension projects, small corporate jets were having to use one of the other three strips to take off and land, but Lake Wales can now handle many of those that had to go elsewhere in the past. Four new corporate airplane hangars have been built in recent years as well to handle the expected increase in air traffic.
“The interest for the Lake Wales Airport has always been there but because we didn’t have funding to expand the runway, we could only allow certain aircraft.,” Allen noted. “Once it expanded to include jets, the interest really started picking up.”
The airport was established in 1928, and since has expanded to its present size of 485 acres. During World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers utilized the airport for the training of military pilots while making improvements which included the construction of the two 4,000-foot runways, one of which is now over 5,400 feet in length. The airport is owned by the city. An appointed Airport Authority serves in an advisory capacity to the city commission.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City Of Lake Wales
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