(File photo/ paNOW staff)

By Susan McNeil

Council approves contract for airport terminal design

May 17, 2022 | 10:56 AM

After some discussion, city council gave their staff the permission to go ahead to hire a company to design a new terminal building for the airport.

The decision to hire a company now does not mean a decision has been made to build the facility any time soon.

Councillor Ted Zurakowski asked for clarification on why the design is happening now when there are other priorities for construction.

“What are the expectations for administration and council if this goes through? We have a number of other needs,” he said.

Those other needs include moving the city yards or the building of some secondary sub firehalls.

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As Public Works Director Wes Hicks explained, the money for the terminal design comes from a very specific fund and not from tax revenue.

“The funding that’s coming to pay for this comes out of the Passenger Facility Fee Reserve, that was specifically set up for only one purpose and that was to build a new terminal building,” Hicks said.

So far, the fund has collected $2.7 million, some of which would be used for the design and the rest must also be used for its designated purpose.

Last year, the city completed an Airport Strategic Master Plan and one of the items in the plan was to have a design plan ready to go.

“One of the Strategic Master Plan bullets was to get the design done on the new terminal so that you can be on the shelf and shovel ready,” Hicks said.

If the City has the money saved in advance and a design prepared, should a different level of government announce a cost sharing program and the city was ‘shovel ready,’ the project could proceed quickly.

The remaining money is not enough to construct an entire terminal building, but it is enough to pay for the city’s share if an Infrastructure Canada program opened, said Hicks.

The current terminal building has ‘operational deficiencies’ according to Transport Canada guidelines.

The size of the building now leads to crowding during flight delays and there is limited ability to expand in any direction to accommodate additional cargo loads if flight volumes increase.

In 2021 alone, the city received over $5 million in outside funding for the airport.

Council voted unanimously to award the contract of $635,040 to Prairie Architecture of Winnipeg.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow