SNAGS DELAY PROJECTS AT CAPE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT; FINGERS POINTED AT BUREAUCRACY AND CAPRICIOUS WEATHER

Bureaucratic snags and uncooperative weather have forced delays in capital improvements projects at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport this year.

Airport Manager Mark Seesing said a terminal building renovation project, T-hangar and taxiway construction, and an airport signage project all have been delayed by unforeseen obstacles.

Seesing said the Federal Aviation Administration has said it won't pay as much of the $1 million terminal building project as city officials expected.

The final plans for the renovation project were approved months ago, but since then the FAA has agreed to fund only about 35 percent of the project.

"Initially we were informed that they would participate on more like 46 to 50 percent," Seesing said. "This came as a blow to the contract and what we were planning to do."

Seesing said he had planned to bid out the project the first of June. "Now I have no idea what the schedule is," he said.

Seesing said the city will submit amended renovation plans to the FAA in hopes the agency will agree to fund a greater portion of the project. He said much of the area designated in the original plans for future airline development were deemed unnecessary by the FAA.

The FAA will only fund "public access" areas of the terminal building.

Seesing said other items in the renovation project were excluded from FAA funding, including a baggage-check area; the airport manager's office; two hallways; a businessmen's public office area complete with such items as a facsimile machine, telephones, and computer terminals; and a conference room.

Seesing said an amended floor plan eliminates the conference room and the additional airline space. Only one commercial airline, Trans World Express, serves the airport, but city officials are trying to bring additional airline service to the city.

"The plan we submitted was a growth plan where we could introduce new airlines without extensive renovation," Seesing said. "But we will need to submit a floor plan of only what's needed now.

"We really wanted to have what we drew out originally because that's what we were trying to do as far as airport development."

Seesing said he hopes to learn within a couple of weeks whether the FAA will agree to fund more of the project based on the amended floor plan.

The new T-hangar is expected to be finished soon, but Seesing said taxiway spurs that will connect the hangar to the runway ramp have been delayed indefinitely because of unstable soil conditions. He said the T-hangar building arrived Tuesday and likely will be erected in less than two weeks.

"The taxiways are in a state of limbo right now for the T-hangars that will be built in 10 days," Seesing said.

The airport manager said he's waiting for an engineer's report on possible solutions to the wet sub-grade soil conditions. He said the wet conditions, made worse by relentless May rains, won't meet the FAA's compaction requirements for the taxiway spurs.

Seesing said correction of the sub-grade problems might be expensive.

The airfield signage program is nearly complete with the exception of minor "touch-up" work on some of the signs, Seesing said. He said the 13 mandatory-instruction and 29 direction signs are installed and operational.

But runway 2/20, recently marked as part of the signage project, must be repainted because the new paint has started to "blister," Seesing said.

Despite the unexpected snags, Seesing said he hopes to finish the airport projects this year, although later than planned. He said he also has submitted preapplication documents for next year's capital improvement projects.

The projects include a fire-protection water system and re-alignment of a parking lot entrance road.

Funding for airport projects planned for 1993 and beyond could be jeopardized by sagging airport boardings. If the airport dips below 10,000 annual enplanements a target barely reached last year the city stands to lose $300,000 in annual FAA entitlements for airport improvements.

The boardings this year are about 600 less than the total last year by May. Seesing said that if boardings drop below 10,000 the city would lose its "primary airport" status and be considered a "commercial airport."

But he said there may be funding sources other than federal entitlements for the airport improvement projects. A pilot state-block-grant program in Missouri provides financing for some projects at commercial airports, Seesing said.

"For special projects, we could wind up getting more money" than through the federal entitlements, he said. "The problem is that projects like the terminal building are a low priority. Things like runways are high priority.

"We could ask for a 7,000-to-8,000-foot runway and get it by asking once," he said. "I begged for six months to get a terminal building."

Seesing said that although state funding is available through the pilot grant program, Cape Girardeau would compete for the funds with many other commercial airports in the state.

"Being a larger airport inside that category gives us probably a better chance at getting funding," he said.