City Council moves airport hangar project forward to vote – Austin Daily Herald

The Austin City Council on Monday, moved out of the work session a plan to pay for a 10-unit T-hangar at the Austin Municipal Airport that would make use of entitlement funding alongside other avenues of funding.

The city is currently receiving bids on the hangar and City Engineer Steven Lang said he would be bringing those bids to council in April.

The project itself is estimated to cost just over $2.4 million dollars, with funding for the project breaking down to 5% local, 5% state and 90% federal. The largest chunk would come through funding through from federal sources at around $2.2 million.

Lang laid out that entitlement funding, which the city has loaned out to other cities, is coming back in to help fund the project, however Lang also posed a question to the council in order to help secure bids.

He explained that it’s hard to get contractors to lock into prices on projects such as these and that an answer to this would be to award a bid and based on the likelihood of getting the usual federal dollars, authorize the contractor to lock in pricing on critical components.

Lang said the city would be taking on a slight risk, but it would also ensure prices aren’t affected by inflation.

“Based on past history, the risk to the city of putting these dollars forward … is low,” Lang said.

Street projects

The city also held public hearings on four street improvement projects, approving resolutions for declaring cost and adopting assessment rolls for each project.

The projects include:

• Street improvements to Eighth Street NE (16th Avenue to 18th Avenue NE) and lift station construction at 16th Avenue and Eighth Street NE.

• Street improvements on Ninth Street SW (17th Avenue to 22nd Avenue W and 12th Street SW (17th Avenue to 21st Avenue SW.

• Street improvements on Fourth Avenue NE (17th Street to 19th Street NE and First Avenue NE (Eighth Street to 10th Street NE).

• Street Improvements on Second Avenue NW (14th Street to 19th Street NW and 1th Street NW (Oakland Avenue West to Second Avenue NW) and 17th Street (Oakland Avenue West to Second Avenue NW).

The second of the four projects drew heavy public concern over the addition of sidewalks under guidance of the city’s Complete Streets Program, however, the City Council has approved the project without the addition of the sidewalks under that public concern.