New building and new business at Sidney Airport

A terminal building scheduled for construction in the spring at the Sidney Airport will be a place for flight crews to rest.

The Sidney Airport Authority opened bids for the 2,500 square foot terminal building last month, but only received one bid. The cost estimate for the building was roughly $750,000, but the bid came in at about $200,000 above that price.

Per recommendations from the Nebraska Department of Aeronautics and the project engineer, officials at the airport rejected the bid. They hope to gain more interests with another bid opening in November.

"Everyone's consensus was the project would probably come in a little bit lower (with a later bid)," Jon Leever, representative of the Sidney Airport Authority Board told the city council on Tuesday. "The types of contractors that bid on that or would bid on that seem to be extremely busy in this part of the country right now."

The terminal building will be constructed between the Western Nebraska Community College building and the current fixed base operator. Leever dispelled the misunderstanding that construction of a terminal building meant Sidney would have passenger air service.

"No, that doesn't have anything to do with like, having a scheduled airline," Leever said. "This building is going to be a transition building for business people that come through, the doctors that fly in in the morning."

Sidney Regional Medical Center often hosts visiting physicians who fly in for the day from other areas.

"Many times the flights that bring the doctors in for the day, those pilots have to spend all day here waiting," Leever said. "This will give them a nice area to rest in, a quiet area to do flight planning."

Right now when members of the military fly into Sidney with packs and guns, there is not much room for storage. The new building will provide plenty of extra space.

"This is a project that we're real excited about," Leever said.

A grant from the Nebraska Department of Aeronautics will pay for a large portion of the building.

In addition to plans for its new building, the airport has leased a portion of its storage hangar to an airplane maintenance company out of Newton, Kansas. The company, which works to refurbish old aircraft in poor condition is considering building a facility of its own in Sidney. The company installs new engines and interiors in the aircrafts, paints them and then either sells or leases them. Leever estimated that the company might begin work some time this month.

"They're very interested in working with the WNCC aviation maintenance program and the airport," Leever said.

Councilman Mark Nienhueser asked Leever and the Airport Authority Board to consider utilizing de-icing chemicals on Sidney's runway during the winter in order to avoid the days-long closures that occurred last winter. The airport does not currently have the equipment to apply chemical de-icer.

"The liquid de-icing stuff is extremely, extremely expensive," Leever said.

Nienhueser suggested a partnership between the city and the airport to make de-icing more feasible.

Also at Tuesday's meeting, the city council accepted the airport authority's request for its allocation out of the city budget for the 2014-2015 fiscal year which begins in October of almost $133,000.