Business View Magazine | November 2020

180 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020 Generations of Craftsmanship Let’s get to work on your project! www.cardinalconstructionco.com for the five counties in the Oshkosh region. “This year, due to the COVID pandemic, the 2020 version of the event was cancelled,” Schell laments. “But both the Airport and EAA are undertaking a number of improvements to prepare for the return of AirVenture in 2021.” Some of those improvements are within the scope of the Airport’s forthcoming, new Master Plan, last updated in 2004, and which Schell reports is about 75 percent complete. Several of the key focus areas for redevelopment are the terminal area, the east side, general aviation hangar area, and plans for a new configuration of the Airport’s taxiway and runway system. “We currently maintain a waiting list of approximately 35 people for hangars,” he says. “So, we’re in the process of evaluating our hangar needs. We’ve also got a number of aging facilities that need to be addressed, long-term, in order to chart the path forward for the next 20 years. The goal, this year, is to start design on a new hangar development, in order to request funds for actual construction, next year.” Currently, Wittman Regional has four runways, which is unique for a general aviation airport its size “Runway 18/36 is our primary runway; it’s over 8,000 feet in length,” Schell notes. “Runway 9/27 is our secondary runway at 6,179 feet. Runway 5/23 and Runway 13/31 form an X right in the middle of our airfield and are very much under consideration on what the long-term approach is going to be on those two runways. The FAA and the State Bureau of Aeronautics are not funding any rehab on those runways, right now. We’re trying to make the case to keep a third runway, and that’s looking that it would be Runway 5/23 that could be federally-eligible for funding. But it’s definitely a bit of a challenge in this day and age. So, we’re looking at a number of different options. Ultimately, we’re looking at an option that would, at minimum, take us from four runways, down to three, long-term.” A current development at Wittman Regional is a $9.5 million project to reconstruct Taxiway