OCR Text |
Show City, County Join In Airport Study Park .City has agreed to participate financially with Summit County in the preparation of a feasibility study for the construction of a light craft private airport on a site near Silver Creek Junction. Request for partial funding fund-ing for the study was made by Chamber of Commerce Director Amanda Peterson at last week's meeting of the City Council. Ms. Peterson explained that her organization organiza-tion endorses the prospects of an airport near Park City to provide residents and visitors who pilot their own planes an alternative to landing in Salt Lake. She added that the proposed airport would also eventually greatly benefit an industrial park proposed for the Silver Creek area. Tod Wirthlin, a consulting engineer who has begun preliminary work on the report, told the Council that the total cost of the feasibility feasibil-ity study would run between . $30,000 and $40,000. He added, however, that there was a good possibility that up to 80 percent of that cost would be provided by the Four Corners Regional Commission, Com-mission, an organization representing Utah, Colorado, Colo-rado, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. Should Four Corners agree to fund the project,.- the portion split equally by Park City and Summit County would be between $6,000 and $8,000. It was with the provision that additional funding is available avail-able that the City Council agreed to participate in the project. Councilmen were told by Mr. Wirthlin that there exists some urgency in getting the project underway it the airport is to become a reality in the next five years. He explained that if funding for the actual construction of the airport is to be provided by the Federal Aeronautics Association (FAA) then the feasibility study must be in their hands as soon as possible. "Otherwise," he said, "it could take years before they even consider the project." Tentative plans for the airport call for a facility capable of handling private aircraft up to the size of a Convair jet prop and some small business jets. Airlines and other public carriers would not land near Park City, but could do so in case of emergency. Park City and Summit County have been mulling over the feasibility of an airport here for more than ten years with earlier sites being rejected because of unrealistic prices and hazardous ha-zardous approaches. The new site now being considered con-sidered is near- a - formerly proposed site near Silver Creek but on a plateau rather than in the valley. |