Courtesy Photo Large trucks continue to work reconstructing the main runway at the Alpena County Regional Airport. A couple of unexpected hiccups have raised the cost of the project for Alpena County from about $13 million to $15.5 million and forced the airport to remain closed longer. The total cost of the projects is estimated to be about $50 million, but the federal government is paying a brunt of the total cost.

ALPENA — A construction project on the runway at the Alpena County Regional Airport has suffered a delay and will cost the county an additional $500,000 to complete.

Now, officials expect the main runway at the airport won’t reopen until the end of the month, when initial hopes were that it would open during the first half of July.

Airport Manager Steve Smigelski said while contractors were laying new concrete, large concrete panels at a large intersection between two runways buckled, causing extensive damage.

He said officials initially believed the water table had risen to the point that vibrations from the rollers used to smooth the concrete caused the buckling. Smigelski said that after an examination of the ground, officials determined that was not the cause and contractors are uncertain what caused the damage.

The damaged area is about 500 feet by 150 feet in size, Smigelski said.

“We are aiming to reopen on July 22,” he said. “We hoped to have things running the second week of the month. We don’t expect any other surprises and, really, I think the weather would be the only other thing that could mess with us.”

The latest delay comes after officials announced in May that a failure of the bond breaker on the runway needed to be removed and replaced, adding about $2 million to the cost of the project, which was initially expected to cost the county about $13 million.

Bond breaker is a substance applied between adjoining solid surfaces to ensure there is no adhesive bond between the surfaces.

The total cost of the project is about $50 million, but the federal government is paying the bulk of the cost.

The county is using a large portion of the nearly $18 million the airport received through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

The closure of the runway has already impacted the number of passengers who fly in and out of the airport, as air-service provider SkyWest elected to not land and take off in Alpena on an alternate runway because it lacks a significant lighting system and an instrumented landing system that pilots utilize.

Each year, if the airport meets or exceeds 10,000 enplanements, which are paying passengers, it receives a $1 million subsidy from the federal government. Meeting that goal may not be in the cards this year because the longer the project takes to wrap up, the less time there is to make up lost ground.

Last year the airport reported just under 13,000 enplanements, including 973 in May, 1,062 in June, and 1,676 in July.

If those types of numbers are lost this year, reaching the 10,000 mark this year becomes tricky.

Smigelski said when the project is completed and he knows how many passengers were lost due to the construction, it will be clearer to project how close, or far, the airport is from the 10,000 enplanement goal.

He said in March if it is clear the goal won’t be reached, there is a chance the airport could recapture the lost EAS subsidy.

“I’ve been told we can apply for a waiver because the reason was for construction,” he said. “This may be a case where we are eligible for a waiver, but we will have to wait and see.”

This phase of the project is only the first of several phases. Work also needs to be done to nearly 1,700 feet on the two ends of the runway. The military is paying the estimated $30 million to complete phase two, which could begin next May; it is not expected to impact SkyWest operations.