Taxiway Improvement Project Moving Forward at University Park Airport

Penn State’s Board of Trustees on Friday approved a $34.8 million taxiway rehabilitation project at University Park Airport.

The project will be mostly funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, with some additional money coming from the Passenger Facility Charge.

David Gray, senior vice president for Finance and Business, said the taxiway has exceeded the FAA’s recommended 20-year service life.

In addition to replacing the top 15 inches of asphalt with new sub-base, base and asphalt, the project will remove direct access to the runway from aprons and increase the size of hold-bays.

Fillets and shoulders will be widened to meet current FAA design standards and better accommodate larger aircraft, and an abandoned cross-wind taxiway will be removed. The storm sewer also will be upgraded.

Gray said the project has been designed to be completed in three phases, which will allow for continued operation of the airfield.

Bill Sitzabee, chief facilities officer, said at a board committee meeting on Thursday that following approval, the university will submit a grant application to the FAA and will not proceed until funding is in hand. 

‘We’re proposing to do this in three phases but we’re teeing it up as a single project,’ Sitzabee said. ‘When it came forward for design it was done as a single project so we could apply for FAA grants.’

The first phase of the project will cost $10.6 million.

‘We are confident that our grant will be supported by the Federal Aviation Administration,’ Sitzabee said.

Mead & Hunt, of Middleton, Wisconsin, was appointed as architect for the project in November 2018.

The taxiway project is the latest in a series of major improvements at University Park Airport. 

A $9 million project is currently in progress and will create a new, longer public access road to the airport terminal, added parking, a bus terminal and a new stormwater management facility. That work is funded by a $2.2 million grant from the state’s Multimodal Transportation Fund and a low-interest loan from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the airport had seen steady growth, with about 190,000 passenger enplanements last year, expanded flights to existing hubs and the addition of Allegiant Air flights to and from two Florida destinations. The airport is the sixth busiest in Pennsylvania