JC airport runway shut down for upgrades

Monday marked the first day of a multi-million dollar project to improve the Jefferson City Airport.

Officials closed the main runway early Monday morning to start reconstruction for the next 125 days.

Aircraft will have to use the smaller runway until construction is finished.

This job is going to cost about $7 million and is being paid for through grants and the half-cent sales tax. If everything goes as planned, it will open back up in 6 months.

“So, this project, although painful while it’s being done, we have our secondary runway still and that is open and the airport is operating as normally as can be expected,” said Britt Smith with Cole County Public Works.

The larger of the two runways at the JC airport is being completely redone. The airport provides about $22 million worth of economic benefits to the capital city and officials want to keep it modern and safe.

MODOT is tearing the whole runway up and replacing it with concrete. The only issue officials are afraid of running into during the 6 month reconstruction will be for the larger aircraft that need extra runway.

As far as lightweight aircraft and helicopters, they can still use the smaller runway like several did Monday.

10% of the project will be covered by MODOT, 90% of it is covered by federal funds.

Airport officials also said there will be about a 12 day period where both runways will be shut down, but that isn’t until early fall.