By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
As improvements to Rosecrans Memorial Airport are ongoing, the St. Joseph City Council has approved more funding to help in construction.
The council approved a series of five grant agreements totaling $19.7 million towards a new air traffic control tower and terminal.
Public Works Director Abe Forney says as city officials explored remodeling the buildings, they soon found that would not work.
"We found that the FAA needed us to have a higher air traffic control tower in the terminal building, which part of that needs to be rebuilt as well," Forney tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "All of this money will be to rebuild the terminal building and the air traffic control tower, which gets the 139th Airlift Wing into their security standard the need and the height requirement for the FAA."
Forney says all these improvements are part of the big picture to help secure the Air National Guard 139th Airlift Group stays in St. Joseph.
Forney says it took complex financing to put together all the money needed to make these upgrades.
"Senator Hegeman was the first one to get us some money a couple of years ago through the state and that really got the ball rolling," Forney explains. "And then Congressman Graves had numerous grants from earmarks and other pockets of money through the federal government that helped us get this project going."
Forney says funds will also go towards a snow removal equipment facility if the money can be stretched that far.
Improvements continue to be made to Rosecrans Memorial Airport.
One expanded the airport runway to help better serve planes as well as the 139th Airlift Group. Forney says everything with that project is going well.
"We were lucky enough to get a local contractor Ideker to do the work and the concrete is all poured they're just going to tidy up some of the ins and outs of the construction project and they'll be wrapping up this spring," Forney says.
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