Holmes airport funding gets county approval

The Holmes County Commissioners continued their effort to update and improve the Holmes County Airport Thursday, March 20 when the board met to approve a pair of resolutions toward that goal.

The commissioners agreed to pass Resolution 03-20-25-2, authorizing the services of Tekton Engineering LLC to begin design work on making both additions and designing a new terminal and hangar area for the Holmes County Airport.

The commissioners have been meeting with the Holmes County Airport Authority in recent weeks and have made it known they believe building up the capabilities of the airport is a necessary step in making Holmes County more accessible to incoming air traffic while offering a place for larger area companies to store airplanes.

While the creation of additions and/or a new terminal are in the future, the creation of a new hangar is currently on tap, and the commissioners and airport authority are looking to make that happen sooner rather than later.

This agreement will allow Tekton engineers to move forward in drafting up blueprints for the hangar.

The agreement with Tekton is in the amount of $207,200.

“We’re going to do some feeling out to get a sense of what we can do with the money we have available and are willing to spend,” Commissioner Joe Miller said.

Robert Miller, president of Tekton Engineering, said the contract is created such that the county can go phase by phase, and within each phase, Tekton will come up with an engineer’s estimate to allow the county to gain a better feel for where it would like the project to proceed.

“There may have to be some pull-back on the original concept in this one,” Robert Miller said. “I would expect that in the early schematic phase as we see where we need to be for the hangar and terminal. But it is important to look at the phasing and give them the ability, even if it’s not the entire project, whenever you decide to move forward, that we do have the ability to add on or finish out some space that remains unfinished.”

Commissioner Miller said at this point the hangar has become the single most important feature that needs addressed because it will allow the airport to house larger aircraft, something that is becoming more commonplace in recent years.

Commissioner Dave Hall said the hangar creates additional revenue for the airport authority. He also said adding new restrooms and other upgrades to the terminal will create savings in liability insurance.

“This (airport) is so important to Holmes County,” Commissioner Miller said. “We’ve been talking about this a long time.”

He said Larry Clark, manager of the airport, told him there are already several local companies that would be willing to invest in jet planes were they able to house them at the airport, but they don’t want to make that investment until the airport can safely and securely house their planes in a new facility.

“There are a lot of businesses in Holmes County doing very well, and we need to invest in newer and better facilities,” Commissioner Miller said.

In a separate resolution, the commissioners authorized a grant contract of $259,575 with the Ohio Airport Improvement Program.

In breaking down the grant, the total local share, which will come from the Holmes County Airport Authority, will be $12,979, with an additional $246,596 coming from state funding through ODOT.

According to Tracy Schlabach of the Holmes Planning Commission, this grant comes courtesy of Ohio Department of Transportation, which selected the Holmes County Airport as a recipient of the funding.

The funding is for rehabilitation and replacement of AWOS III P/T, a device that measures and reports all valuable information regarding upcoming weather patterns, precipitation and freezing rain and runway surface conditions, which are then relayed to incoming aircraft.