Gary/Chicago International Airport has completed an expansion of its fuel farm, where jet fuel and aviation gas are stored.
The expansion resolves a controversy that forced the airport's newest fixed-base operator, B. Coleman Aviation, to order and store fuel by the truckload. Fixed-base operators provide services such as aircraft fueling, maintenance and charters.
"It helps overall to improve the competitiveness of the new fixed-base operator, so everyone is on a level playing field," said Airport Director Dan Vicari after Monday's airport authority meeting.
An agreement entered into earlier between the airport authority and B. Coleman authorized spending up to $650,000 to increase fuel farm capacity by 40,000 gallons. Under that agreement, B. Coleman was to finance the upfront cost of the project and then pay itself back by getting a discount on fuel flowage fees normally paid to the airport. The airport retains ownership of the entire fuel farm.
The actual cost of the project came to $547,568, according to the airport. That was almost 9 percent under its projected price. B. Coleman opened for business at the airport two years ago.
The airport's other fixed-base operator, Gary Jet Center, sued over the fuel farm issue in late 2013, citing its own lease, which guaranteed it sufficient fuel farm capacity to serve Boeing Corp. and other customers. That lease provision basically shut B. Coleman out of the fuel farm.
The airport authority eventually settled with Gary Jet Center, promising to respect that lease provision and to work with B. Coleman to expand the fuel farm.
The airport authority at its meeting Monday at the airport administration building also approved several change orders, as it draws nearer to completing the final punch list for its $174 million runway expansion, which opened in July.
The largest change order was to add $724,747 in payments to the contract for Brandenburg Environmental Excavation. The company had to remove much greater amounts of contaminated soil than anticipated, because pollution had seeped deeper into soil than originally thought, Vicari told the authority board. That contract now stands at $5.81 million.
Another change involved adding $200,000 to a contract for LLC On-Call Environmental Response. That contract now stands at $2.22 million. The change will pay for another year of environmental testing in the runway expansion areas.
In a news release issued after the meeting, the airport authority stated plans for a U.S. Customs facility at the Gary airport are moving forward. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection office at O’Hare International Airport will soon assign a project manager to assist with its layout, design, location and construction.