With the Chehalis-Centralia Airport master plan update process completed and awaiting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval, Airport Director Brandon Rakes gave a rundown of the changes made and his vision for the airport’s future to the Chehalis City Council last week.
“We really are working to make this as a demonstrator airport,” Rakes said during the June 24 meeting. “... Innovate, integrate, replicate, and that’s kind of what we’ve been doing with this master plan is figuring out ways we can innovate what we’re doing here, how we can integrate it and then how we can replicate, not just in our airport but throughout the entire country.”
Joining him during the presentation was Leah Whitfield, a project manager for the Aviation Planning Group (APG), which assisted airport staff in crafting the new master plan.
Rakes and Whitfield recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., to talk about their vision for the airport with different U.S. senators and representatives, including leaders from the U.S. House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation.
“It was really great to show them the work we’ve put into the master plan, Brandon’s vision for implementing the master plan, but then really talk about how it can be that demonstrator airport, especially as a general aviation airport,” Whitfield said. “There’s not a lot of general aviation airports that are really doing this.”
The update process began in June 2023 and included three separate open houses to collect public input, along with collecting comments online.
Required by the FAA to get federal grant funding, airport master plans are comprehensive studies describing the short-, medium- and long-term development goals for future aviation demand at an airport over a 20-year period.
“We don’t focus so much on the operations and maintenance of the airport,” Whitfield said. “We obviously identify maintenance projects, but we’re very much focused on that development need in order to meet that forecasted demand.”
The last time the Chehalis-Centralia Airport’s master plan was updated was 2001. Funding to conduct the update process came from the FAA along with a Washington State Department of Transportation aviation grant, Whitfield added.
Some of the aspects Whitfield and fellow APG consultants looked at included the airport’s current condition, forecast projections for flight traffic, airport facility levels required to meet those projections and advanced air mobility operations.
Once data was gathered, APG consultants began crafting possible solutions and performing environmental reports. The plan also includes funding sources to complete projects.
“The airport layout plan, which is really that big set of maps the FAA has to formally approve, that airport layout plan was submitted to the FAA on May 22. They have 90 days, approximately, to approve that,” Whitfield said. “We’ve seen a much shorter time frame from them on other projects … As soon as the FAA approves the airport layout plan, the (update) is done.”
As for some of the details within the new master plan, within the next five years the goal is to begin work on a hydrogen development area and advanced air mobility (AAM) apron on the airport’s northeast corner to allow for new unmanned aerial systems and electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft coming into the market.
“So we have room for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, electric aircraft, hydrogen powered aircraft, passenger aircraft or cargo. Any kind of this emerging technology we’ve talked about in past meetings can be in this apron,” Whitfield said.
More parking will be added to the airport’s observation area, located southwest of the runway.
“I ate lunch today at the observation area. There were like four or five cars there at 2:30 (p.m.), so lunch was kind of over. It just shows the popularity of that and how we can enhance it for the community to give them an opportunity to be a little more engaged with the airport,” she added.
Mid-term goals included realigning and adding taxiways, parking, a new apron on the airport’s northwest corner and solar panels.
“Brandon’s got some big plans to store equipment under solar panels, too,” Whitfield said.
“Make them multi-purpose,” Rakes added.
Additionally, flooding was taken into consideration. More high ground parking will be added to get aircraft out of flood zones and keep them dry during floods.
As for the long-term goals, the airport’s automated weather system, which is about 15 years old, according to Whitfield, is still working well, but she anticipates it also might need to be replaced in the next 10 to 15 years.
There are also plans for hangar development to add more storage space. Hangar space at the airport is currently at 100% capacity. Forecasted increases in use of the airport over the next 20 years means more hangars will be necessary to keep pace.
“Understand that hangars are really expensive to build. We’ll be looking for different funding opportunities,” Whitfield said.
As for funding for all of these projects, applications submitted already include a $350,000 Washington state Department of Commerce industrial site readiness grant, a Build America Bureau innovative finance and asset concessions grant totalling $994,653 for a hydrogen feasibility study, and a $3 million WSDOT-Department of Commerce clean energy grant.
Other potential future funding sources include WSDOT aviation sustainability grants, Department of Commerce energy efficiency grants, federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act funding, U.S. Department of Energy funding, low-interest loans available through WSDOT, state infrastructure banks and rural project initiatives.
“I think the airport and the city are really well poised to finish off the master plan in the coming weeks and be able to really pursue different funding opportunities, many of which don’t have a match,” Whitfield said.
Since 2005, the airport has received nearly $7 million in federal grants, Whitfield said. That includes almost $2.6 million for taxiway reconstruction in 2018 and nearly $1 million in 2021 for runway and taxiway sealing.
Once the FAA has approved t he Chehalis-Centralia Airport’s updated master plan, the plan will be published for the public to see. The final step will be adoption by the Chehalis City Council.
To view the draft master plan, the old 2001 master plan and other related documents, visit https://www.chehaliscentraliaairport.com/documents .
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