MORGANTOWN — Morgantown Municipal Airport Director Jonathan Vrabel said the city recently initiated a feasibility study in the hopes of cashing in on federal dollars dedicated for airport terminal projects.
The study is being conducted by Michael Baker International and should be completed early next year at an anticipated cost of $120,000.
“Our terminal was built in 1963. It opened in 1964. The mechanicals inside that building are at end of life; every piece of it,” Vrabel said.
Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli further explained the size and configuration of the building makes for an unusual travel experience.
“You kind of have that standard airport experience no matter what airport you go in. You come in, you do this with your bags, you sit, you walk through. There’s kind of a normal process. But that doesn’t exist [at Morgantown],” Muzzarelli said. “You kind of have to walk in and back out. There’s just not a process that people are used to when they walk into an airport. … We can’t even fit our appropriate security/TSA equipment in the area that they have right now.”
In addition, Vrabel continued, the building is just plain ugly. He said Muzzarelli joked shortly after he joined the city in 2019 that he would be working in a container ship.
“She’s right. It looks like a gray container ship; very ugly looking building,” Vrabel said. “It has no style. It is not representative of our region at all. It does not make anybody coming into the airport know they’re in Morgantown or this beautiful state that we live in. We want to change that.”
According to Vrabel, the study will determine whether the city would be better off to remodel the existing structure, tear it down and build new or some combination of the two.
“That study started about a month ago. We should have it wrapped up by the end of the first quarter of 2023 and we’ll make our game plan from there on how we’re going to go forward,” Vrabel said.
In other airport news, Vrabel said Flexjet recently constructed a new hangar at the airport and has designs on a second, potentially in 2023.
The Cleveland, Ohio-based company has an engine shop on Canyon Road.
“So the guys who run the engine shop would really like to be at the airport. They’d like to fly the airplanes in and work on the aircraft here instead of trucking the engines back and forth,” Vrabel said, adding “They’re planning on doubling the size of their fleet next year, so we’re hoping we can be a part of that.”
All this is happening with the backdrop of an ongoing multi-year runway extension project currently estimated at $65 million.
Vrabel previously told The Dominion Post the ultimate goal is a complete rebranding of the state’s busiest, and only municipally-owned, airport.
Morgantown Gateway Airport has been among the names considered as it would align with the airport’s federal identifier, MGW.
