Preliminary plans for a new terminal at the Benton Municipal Airport were outlined during a recent city council meeting.
Jim Brown of the engineering firm Brown and Roberts, based in Harrisburg, provided the update.
Local officials and Brown representatives met with officials of the Illinois Department of Transportation, Aeronautics Division, during a meeting in Springfield recently to "get everyone on the same page," according to Brown.
Brown said the project would require a 10 percent match from the city. The remaining 90 percent is provided through state and federal funds.
Brown did not provide a cost estimate and said the size of the building has not been determined. He said a building of 3,000 square feet is considered too large, although the new terminal may be larger than the present facility of 1,500 square feet. He noted the present terminal building was constructed in 1965.
"One of the big criteria in financing is that this building must contain at least 82 percent public use areas," Brown said. "If you go below that they (IDOT) will want to tax the city with more of that portion of the project."
Brown said there has been discussion of a private meeting room for aviators, although state officials said that may or may not happen.
"There's going to be some give and take on this project as it develops," Brown said.
Brown said another subject that came up during the meeting is subsidence found on the airport property.
"If at all possible, we're going to try to place the building on one of the large floors," he said. "That may or may not be possible. If not, we're going to try to make some accommodations for the subsidence."
Brown noted some portions of the present facility, particularly the floor tile, is "suspicious" when it comes to hazardous materials. If the survey determines there is asbestos, it will have to be removed properly.
Brown said the next step is to come up with a design, cost and task for the project. Once it is approved by the state, an engineering agreement will be presented to the city for a site specific project.
Benton Finance Commissioner Dennis Miller estimated the project would take about 30 weeks to complete.
"Until we get a signed engineering agreement approved by you (the council), we can't officially start incurring costs. Hopefully, we can get past that fairly rapidly," Brown said.
The council unanimously approved proceeding with the project.
