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The Future
There are funding matches
from the state of Illinois and
from the Metropolitan Airport
Authority of Peoria, as well.
Mount Hawley was lucky,
Olson said, in that a small airport
in Chicago that was to receive
the state apportionment this year
didn’t get their paperwork done
and had to release its hold on
the money. “That enables us to
go ahead with the extension as
quickly as we can so we can start
seeing some immediate benefits,”
he said.
The Airport Authority had
already acquired land to the
north of the airport — up to the
Illinois Route 6 right-of-way,
basically — to accommodate the
runway extension and 200-foot
runway protection zone required
of each airport. That was done in
2007, a year after the feasibility
study was done.
It’s possible more land
acquisition will be necessary
as the project moves into later
phases, Olson said. He expects
it to take up to five years before
conversion to a B-II airport is
complete. Olson said that’s
important to those pilots who
use Mount Hawley regularly,
including the 60 or so who keep
their aircraft at the auxiliary
airport.
When the Airport Authority
conducted a public hearing
on the project last September,
it heard from several of those
aircraft owners who said they
believed the improvements were
needed.
One was Greg Abbott, a local
stock broker whose written
testimony was included in the
environmental impact study
done by the Federal Aviation
Administration and Illinois
Department of Transportation
Division of Aeronautics.
He said he has flown out of
Mount Hawley since 1973 and
wanted to applaud the planned
improvements. He added he
has had to pick up passengers
at other airports because of the
runway length and payload
restrictions at Mount Hawley.
Another was William Blake, a
Peoria lawyer who said he’s been
a pilot for 52 years and leased a
hangar at Mount Hawley since
1973. He said he supports the
project because it will keep the
auxiliary airport “financially
viable.”
He added he also supports it
because “in 52 years of flying we
have never seen a runway that
was too long. Even for the small
planes it adds to the safety of the
airport.”
Thomas Fliege, chairman of
the Peoria Area Chamber of
Commerce and a pilot himself
said the chamber regards Mount
Hawley an important entry
portal to Peoria for business
purposes and “critical for
business development purposes.
The fact of the matter is that we
don’t believe that the people that
are going to be developing our
$450 million warehouse district
downtown will be arriving on
United Airlines.”
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