By Mitchell Kirk
MT. COMFORT — When an airport prepares a master plan, the document typically maps out the facility’s next 20 years.
It’s only been about 13 since Indianapolis Regional Airport’s current one was finished, and already so much has changed there and throughout surrounding western Hancock County that it’s time for an update.
Helping to fund those efforts is a $166,666 grant recently awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration. The process will entail an exhaustive examination of the airport and its future. It comes at a time when an official with the company that operates the airport anticipates upcoming needs like an air traffic control tower, longer runways and customs operations.
At just over 200 pages, the airport’s current master plan was drafted in 2007, several years before its name was changed from Mount Comfort Airport.
Jarod Klaas, senior director of planning and development for the Indianapolis Airport Authority, said the update will include studies and community outreach along with evaluating the airport and the role it plays in the national airport system.
Technical studies will analyze the airport’s existing facilities and infrastructure, Klaas continued. The master plan update, which will take about two years to complete, will also determine and lay out the next several years of construction projects. It will examine the current and projected needs of the airport’s fixed-base operator, Indy Jet, as well.
“As development continues to occur in that county, we have increased needs for larger corporate air traffic that utilize the airport, and so all of those things will be looked at,” Klaas said.
Ryan Maxfield, general manager of Indy Jet, said he hopes the updated plan will include an opportunity for an air traffic control tower in the future.
“There’s so much activity today that it’s becoming a safety concern, because even though the airspace is controlled, there’s no air traffic control and no ground controller,” Maxfield said. “As we continue to grow, we anticipate needing an air traffic control tower, we would hope in the next five years, but it will depend on how funding goes.”
Extending the facility’s primary and north-south runways would be beneficial too, he continued. The latter is mainly used to accommodate small aircraft, and would need about another 1,000 feet for jets.
Furthermore, Maxfield said, a customs facility would allow for a port of entry that would open up the airport to international operations.
Klaas said the updated plan will also feature new sustainability components that are part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program. For that, airport staff, consultants and community outreach will come together to identify objectives for reducing environmental impacts and realizing associated benefits, he said.
The latest FAA grant is the last portion of the funds needed to update the master plan, following a grant award from last year, Klaas said. In total, the update will cost a little more than $565,000, more than 96% of which is grant-funded.
“That’s great news — we get to leverage grant dollars,” Klaas said. “That’s such an important foundation for the future of the airport and also the future of its public value to the county… It’s just really exciting to be a part of that. Pouring concrete, building things, that’s all things that my team loves to do, but it’s so important to get the planning right in the beginning, because that sets the direction.”
Maxfield said the intention of an airport master plan is to help the FAA, state department of transportation and local airport look at the next 20 years and consider growth, future capacity needs and safety.
Indianapolis Regional Airport has grown so fast that its activity is currently at a level the current master plan didn’t anticipate occurring for about another decade, he continued.
An airport that receives federal funding must have an FAA-approved master plan, but the FAA only requires one every 20 years, Maxfield said. While it’s only been a little over half that amount of time for Indianapolis Regional, the growth at the airport demands the process occur sooner.
To illustrate that growth, Maxfield said when Indy Jet started about 10 years ago, it was providing between 300,000 and 400,000 gallons of fuel a year at Indianapolis Regional Airport and had a few jet aircraft on the airfield.
“This year we’re looking at a million gallons in the airfield and over 20 based jet and turbine aircraft,” he said. “So it’s really grown.”
One of the reasons he attributes the growth to is changing the facility’s name from Mount Comfort Airport, allowing it to resonate more with corporate and out-of-state travelers. The change occurred in time for the traffic the airport received for the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis, he said.
Maxfield described Indianapolis Regional Airport as the “preeminent reliever airport” for Indianapolis International Airport’s general aviation traffic.
Hangars at Indianapolis Regional have doubled over the past several years, he continued. There are also new amenities like the maintenance shop specific to Cessna Citation jets, which are popular in the corporate world.
Staff at the airport has increased in step with the rise in activity and new services, like the charter operation that provides on-demand trips, he said.
“Really this has all combined to create the demand for looking at this,” Maxfield said of the master plan update.
Randy Sorrell, executive director of the Hancock Economic Development Council, said the airport’s potential has been apparent for a long time.
“I’ve always thought it could be a huge asset for economic development, because not everybody’s got an airport that you can land corporate jets on,” he said.
It will continue to be an asset on into the future, Sorrell continued.
“With everything that has been happening in Mt. Comfort the last couple of years, and what’s on the board to develop for the next couple of years, they certainly do need to look at where they fit in all of that,” he said. “I think there will be growth of that facility and I think that will be a boon to both the airport authority and Hancock County.”
The airport has a web page that will provide updates on the master plan’s progress at ind.com/mqjmasterplan. It will also be used for the plan’s community outreach components.
The recent grant funding for Indianapolis Regional Airport’s master plan update is part of $1.2 billion in airport safety and infrastructure grants through the Federal Aviation Administration to 405 airports in 50 states and six U.S. territories. Indianapolis International Airport was awarded almost $10.4 million to rebuild a runway and taxiway and create infrastructure for the Voluntary Airport Low Emissions Program.
