GARY — The Gary/Chicago International Airport’s leadership Monday approved a bond issue of up to $35 million to complete financing for the airport’s planned runway extension.
With most other funding in place, the bond sale will help the airport authority cover the roughly $174 million cost for the project.
Melanie Shaker, senior vice-president of Sycamore Advisory, the airport’s Chicago-based financial consultant, said the city plans to only use $25.6 million from the bond sale.
Together with $24 million the airport has in cash available and $15.2 million in grants from the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority and the Federal Highway Administration, the bond money will cover what’s needed for the project, Shaker said.
The original bill for the runway extension was to be about $166 million, but a range of setbacks and developments have added to the price tag to lengthen the runway from 7,000 feet to 8,900 feet to accommodate larger airplanes.
Chief among those setbacks have been extra expenses linked to environmental issues “which could not be accounted for until work was underway on-site,” according to a statement from airport spokeswoman Emily Tapia-Lopez.
Trying to work with three railroads — Canadian National, CSX and Norfolk Southern — to relocate their tracks bordering the airport has added cost and challenges to the project.
“This is a very complex project,” airport director B.R. Lane said.
She described it as “more than a runway expansion,” and used RDA director Bill Hanna’s words to call it a “major transportation realignment.”
Lane and other airport leaders have had weekly meetings with railroad representatives to iron out differences over the track relocations, but she said she hopes to have a “substantial progress” about that relationship to report at the next authority board meeting.