Allegheny County Airport has secured a $2.9 million state grant to reconstruct its public parking lot and sidewalks.
The grant was announced this week by Leslie S. Richards, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The announcement described the condition of the lot and sidewalks as “severely deteriorated.”
“It’s beyond what can be patched and cobbled together,” said Alyson Walls, spokeswoman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
With a local match of 25 percent, the grant will be used to fully reconstruct the 3-acre lot in front of the terminal and the sidewalks. Design of the project will begin soon with the bulk of the construction occurring in 2015, Ms. Walls said.
“It’s going to help us make some much-needed improvements at county and keep that airport functioning in the way it should,” she said.
The airport in West Mifflin, which serves corporate and other private aircraft, bills itself as the seventh-busiest in Pennsylvania, with 75,000 takeoffs and landings per year.
The state grant was the largest of six announced by PennDOT this week, totaling $9.7 million.
The only other Western Pennsylvania recipient was Lawrence County, which got $100,000 for a hangar expansion at New Castle Municipal Airport.
The grants were issued under the Aviation Transportation Assistance Program, which is funded with bonds.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Ms. Richards said, “With aviation supporting thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania, it’s vital that we ensure airports in Pennsylvania can make safety and operational upgrades. These projects are also investments in the communities these airports serve.”
First Published: February 25, 2015, 5:00 a.m.