Expansion of the New Ulm airport at its present site was the concept selected for development by the city council Tuesday.

Consulting engineers have spent the past two years preparing nine alternative concepts for improvement of the airport. Forward action had been stopped pending a council decision on whether to expand at the present site or relocate the airport.

“We’re at the point where we have to start moving,” said William Gafford, council president.

“Progress on the airport master plan at this time,” added City Manager Richard Salvati, “depends on the council’s selection of the concept it wishes to pursue and have developed.”

The consulting engineers will now prepare a master plan based on the concept chosen. The master plan, a requirement for federal grant applications, will detail the layout of the runways and zoning restrictions.

“Before you can approve a final master plan,” Salvati said, “you have to have a public hearing.” Date for such a hearing is expected to be set soon by the council.

Salvati has estimated the consultants would need about four months to finalize an airport master plan.

After completion of the master plan the matter will return to the city council for authorization to apply for federal and state grants for a specific project within the master plan layout.

The plan selected by the council calls for the main runway to be 4,500 feet initially,with property purchased for possible future extension to 5,500 feet.

LARRY MCCABE, commissioner of the Department of Aeronautics in Minnesota, told city officials on Feb. 21 that his department has been holding money several years for New Ulm airport improvements. He urged officials here to get off dead center.

“If you decide sometime in the next several months that you don’t need this money, I can put it somewhere else,” McCabe said.

The existing runway at the airport runs 2,900 feet. “This is a pretty substandard airport for the kind of use we’re giving it now,” McCabe said.

Plans call for 75 per cent of the project to be financed with federal funds, 15 per cent with state funds and 10 per cent with local funds. A total of $45,000 has been set aside by the City of New Ulm for application to its share of the project cost.

New Ulm Daily Journal

March 5, 1975