Photo by Joselyn King Ohio County Commissioner Randy Wharton, left, Commission President Zach Abraham and Commissioner Don Nickerson provide comments during Tuesday’s commission meeting.

WHEELING – A project to rehabilitate the air traffic control tower at the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport comes with a price tag of nearly $ 2 million, but Ohio County will pay less than $20,000 for the work after receiving federal funding.

County Administrator Randy Russell detailed the project to county commissioners on Tuesday.

“They (contractors) are going in to primarily remove asbestos and replace some of the flooring,” County Administrator Randy Russell said. “They’re going to replace some of the lighting, (install) new blinds and new glass in the tower, and make some structural repairs.

“If you go up there (to the top), there’s a balcony that faces the airfield. There has been some water infiltration into that balcony, and they are going in to repair it.”

Electrical upgrades also are to be part of the project, according to Russell.

The contract to do the work was awarded to Allegheny Construction Group of Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, who submitted the low bid of $1,566,000. He noted when engineering and administration costs are added, the price tag comes to $1,991,000.

The cost to Ohio County, however, is just $19,589 in matching money, according to Russell. This is because the county received funding for the project through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law by President Biden on Nov. 15, 2021. The program includes $550 billion in new federal investment for transportation, utilities, and broadband, aiming to modernize roads, bridges, water systems, and the electric grid.

Russell expects the Allegheny Construction Group team to get started on the tower in about two months. Once the project is underway, he expects it will take about six months to a year to complete.

Also at Tuesday’s commission meeting, representatives of the Chapman Technical Group introduced themselves. The company is the new engineer of record for the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport.

They talked about ideas to rehabilitate runaways at the airport to lengthen them by 150 feet and increase the “runway safety area” at the end of the runway. They said they will be surveying and assessing how much of the airport’s runway system is in compliance with current safety regulations.

The current visional approach slope indicators (VASI’s) at the end of the runways are outdated, explained Brandon Curry with the Chapman Technical Group. He said the hope is to soon replace these with precision approach path indicators (Papi’s) – which are designed to ensure stabilized descents by planes and prevent their low approaches.

The commissioners will convene for their next regular meeting at 8 a.m. on April 16 at the City-County Building, 1500 Chapline St., Wheeling.

Meetings now can be viewed live or watched later online at www.youtube.com/@OhioCountyCommissionWV.