The jagged land is currently marked with tire tracks, dirt piles and overturned grass, but the place will soon be Albert Lea’s spot for a smooth landing.

Construction has begun at the Albert Lea Municipal Airport on a new runway, and the crews hope to complete all the grading work this year to prepare to lay asphalt next spring, said project manager Andy Erichson of Ulland Bros. Inc., the project’s general contractor.

“It’s a great project for the city. For starters, it gives us a new runway. It gives us a new marketing tool,” said City Engineer Steven Jahnke.

The runway, nearing the end of its life span, needed to be replaced or rebuilt within the next decade, he said.

The hope is to have the new runway open by summer of 2010, said Matthew Wagner, the project engineer with engineering firm Mead & Hunt Inc.

Project

Work on this project began around 2001, and the environmental assessment finished in 2003. Jahnke said they thought the project would begin in 2005, but it was pushed back to 2007, and then it was pushed back to 2009.

In the early stages of the project, various scenarios were discussed, but the decision was made to build the new runway west of the existing runway. This task wasn’t exactly easy with Interstate 90 to the north and Green Lea Golf Course to the south.

“We really made the most use of the space we have. I guess it wasn’t an easy task. We had to look at a lot of different options,” Jahnke said. “There was really only one option that worked on the length of runway on this site, and that’s what we’re moving forward with.”

The bid price for the project in 2009 is about $4.3 million, about $3.3 million of that is covered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Any additional costs are 95 percent covered by the federal government and 5 percent by the city. The remaining costs include things like engineering costs on top of the $4.3 million.

Jahnke said the project occurred at a good time because of the federal stimulus package. It was a “shovel-ready” project. Originally, the city was going to get about $2.3 million. He said that doubled the amount of work crews could do this year, meaning the project could be completed in two years rather than three to four.

Runways

The existing runway is 100 feet wide and 4,500 feet long, Wagner said. The new runway is being built 400 feet to the west of the existing runway and will be 5,000 feet long.

The new runway will handle most business jets. Lengthening the runway has more to do with meeting standards than it does with the physical space required to land a jet, said Airport Manager Jim Hanson.

For example, insurance companies don’t allow many business jets to land on runways shorter than 5,000 feet, and Hanson said that’s become the minimum runway length for airports business jets use.

“We’ve operated jets in and out of here for years, but we’ve gotten less and less transient traffic, and they’ve had to go to other cities to land because their insurance company wouldn’t allow them to land here,” Hanson said.

Insurance companies and other groups require that extra length for safety.

“This is Minnesota, and it gets icy here in the wintertime, and that gives a little safety factor for anyone who’s using the airport,” Hanson said.

The new asphalt of the new runway is an additional benefit. Hanson said the existing runway has been overlaid at four times, Hanson said.

“It’s like fixing a bad curve or corner,” he added.

Aside from the new asphalt and the new taxiway, there will also be new approach lighting for the new runway. The existing lighting has been in place since the runway was built in the 1950s. The new lights will especially beneficial during bad weather.

The existing runway remains in service, and the crews are restricted from working near it.

To make room for the new runway, Plaza Street was relocated to the north last year. Crews are also moving a 60-inch sewer drain, and they’ve had to remove an abandoned gas line. The area at the north end of the new runway where the Plaza Street used to run had to be raised with 25 feet of soil.

After the new runway is open, work will shift to converting the existing runway to a taxiway.

Expanding the airport in this way has been the plan since the runway was built in the 1950s, Hanson said.

“Part of the story is that we’ve gotten good use out of our airport,” Hanson said. “All these other airports in southern Minnesota were done about the same time, and all the other communities have done theirs over the last 10 years, and it’s our turn.”

Albert Lea waited almost a decade longer than other communities in the area for federal funding, which is given out by need. Hanson said the runway was able to be in use for that time because of good soil and routine maintenance.

One driving factor in the change is obstructions — the housing developments — southwest of the airport. Rather than buying and demolishing homes, the new runway is being built 400 feet to the west.

The asphalt and the runway can only be maintained and repaired for so long, and Hanson said the current runway is nearing the end of its lifespan. So simply expanding the old runway would not have been a viable solution because of the age of the runway and the obstructions to the southwest, Hanson said.

Albert Lea

The runway won’t put Albert Lea ahead of other cities in community development.

“From a community development standpoint, I always tell people that having a good airport won’t land you a business, but not having one — you’re not even on the list,” Hanson said. “If people have to land in Rochester and drive to Albert Lea, they’ll probably locate in Rochester or Mason City or anyplace else.”

It’s difficult to judge the effects of a project like this, and it’s difficult to point to a specific business this will benefit, but the additions to the runway are an important step in competing for businesses with other cities, said Albert Lea Economic Development Agency Executive Director Dan Dorman.

“It isn’t an extra. It isn’t something that’s going to give us a competitive advantage, but it will make sure that somebody else doesn’t have a competitive advantage over us,” Dorman said.

“We want to make sure we don’t fall behind other geographic regions. It’s not like we can say, ‘Boy, 15 jobs are going to come because of this,’” Dorman said.

“It really puts the city on the map,” Wagner said.