Another project for one amenity in the City of Jefferson was recently given the green light at the city council.

The Jefferson City Council approved at their regular meeting on July 11th a $1,190,028 contract with Jensen Builders to build a 100-foot by 100-foot hangar at the Jefferson Municipal Airport. City Administrator Scott Peterson says a majority of the funding is through Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grants of just over $900,000, and he talks about where the rest of the funds are coming from.

“The City has a share in this project also. We’ve since applied for some additional funding through the Iowa DOT. And if we are in fact ti receive that grant funding then it would add some additional work to the project but in the end it ends up reducing the amount of the City’s share of the project cost.”   

Peterson says the City was given preliminary approval through the Iowa DOT for the additional grant funding, of which only the base bid was approved by the Council. Peterson notes the contractor can proceed with the project.

“The contractor can now go ahead and begin some work on the project, but it’s administrative work largely to start with. And they’re got to give us their shop drawings about what it is that they would propose for the building exactly, and the engineer reviews those to make sure that it meets specifications, and then they can go ahead and order the building. Lead time on the building would be something around 16 weeks.”  

Peterson adds hangar space has been a chronic issue at the airport and with this large hangar, it can also accommodate larger aircraft.