By Elsa Maxey

What does a city do when a funding source tells it that significant grant monies will be available for an approved project in a master plan, but instead of it being done in two budget year phases as intended, it will now have to be done in one and the city needs to wire over a million dollars as its share in less than 15 days?

It probably does what the Sugar Land City Council did mid-June, when Sugar Land Airport Director of Aviation Phil Savko asked for authorization for an additional $860,734 to augment an approved $450,000 for the construction of a taxi lane that will create jobs and add a steady source of income to the airport. The city council approved the additional funds and according to Savko, the taxi lane was already a part of the airport’s layout plan. He said the project site is in the northeast part of the airport in an area designated for continued corporate development and doing it in as one effort would serve to take advantage of favorable construction costs.

Essentially, the taxi lane will represent a place where airplanes taxi to the runways. Savko told council members that already there are letters of interest to lease sites once it is completed next August.

The project will cost $11.5 million with the airport financing $1.3 million or 10 percent. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will pay for the balance. Reportedly, about 90 jobs will be created and about $200,000 per year will be annual revenue for the airport from corporate leases, plus there will be more to be made from fuel sales.

The approved payment of $1,310,733 to the TxDOT Aviation Division for Taxi lane “Juliette” Project by the Sugar Land City Council came with an important explanation. “The full burden of paying the debt associated with this project will be borne by the airport and airport users,” said City Manager Allen Bogard, and “we have done an analysis to ensure that the airport has sufficient funds to be able to finance, to make the debt service payments on this debt.”

Savko told council that there is a large interest in the Sugar Land Airport and given its fixed base operator reputation, he said that a lot of companies want to relocate to the Sugar Land facility.

The Sugar Land Regional Airport has been rated at the top for two consecutive years as the western hemisphere’s best operation by Aviation International News, most recently in 2010. The city reports that it has been among the top 10 since 2007.

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