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‘Right where we need to be’

Airport, jail projects are progressing

ALPENA — The completion dates for the new terminal at Alpena County Regional Airport and the new county jail on M-32 may be many months away, but there is progress being made at both construction sites, and it seems the timelines for the projects have been altered little by the early arriving snow this winter.

Motorists traveling on M-32 will be able to see some of the preparation at the site of the new jail. Sheriff Steve Kieliszewski said timber on the land has been cleared and a pair of access roads have been made, which will allow trucks and other equipment to move freely in and out. He said design meetings are still ongoing and tweaks are being made to the original plan because, right now, the design costs are over budget by about $200,000.

Kieliszewski said there will only be small changes to the plan and construction on the building should commence in the spring.

“We’re refining the design and we’re getting close to being where we need to be,” he said. “We should be getting our guaranteed price and, as far as where we are time-wise, we are right where we need to be at this point.”

The cost of the new jail is set to be $11.4 million and any design overruns need to be amended and the cost guarantee in place before construction will begin.

At the airport, there has been a flurry of activity and it will continue to be that way in the coming weeks.

Airport manager Steve Smigelski said the short-term parking lot has been expanded and a contractor will begin running utilities beneath the ground under Airport Road. A crew will come in and do asbestos removal in the old hangar and then the structure will begin to be torn down on Nov. 26.

It will take about three days to clean up the debris from the old hangar, as well.

“There isn’t a lot of asbestos, just some wrap on old pipes, so that needs to be cleaned up,” Smigelski said. “The parking lot project was supposed to be in phase four of the plan, but they moved it out so now there is more room for people. It was getting pretty congested around here.”

The entire terminal project is estimated to take 13 months, and it should be completed late next year. The new jail and sheriff’s office is slated to be completed in the summer of 2020.

The jail project was made possible when voters approved a 20-year bond proposal in November 2017. Funding for the new terminal is coming from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is paying 95 percent of the cost, while Michigan Department of Transportation and Alpena County will each pay for 2.5 percent of the cost of the project, which is expected to cost about $11 million.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com or 989-358-5689. Follow Steve on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.

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