CLAREMONT — With a backdrop of surrounding hills in peak fall colors, the city celebrated nearly $7 million in improvements to its municipal airport on Tuesday.
Though the project included upgrades all over the airport, which serves private aviation, the most visible aspect is a new terminal building with a lounge that replaced the original hangar and a later addition for a terminal.
Pilot Dave Carton, who has had a plane at the airport for close to 40 years and flies about once a week when the weather is fair, was relaxing in the lounge before the ceremony began.
“It is wonderful,” Carton, a Claremont resident, said about the new look. “Claremont is very fortunate to have an airport like this. It is very well taken care of and maintained to a high standard.”
Claremont Fire Chief Bryan Burr, who noted he is the only fire chief in the state with the permanent dual role of airport manager, said the work began in 2017. (Outgoing Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos did serve as acting airport manager in Lebanon for a time.)
Still to come next spring is a relocation of one of the airport’s taxiways.
In addition to the new terminal building, where pilots and travelers can unwind before or after flights, the project also included runway apron rehabilitation, a new gasoline protection pad (preventing spills from getting into the ground) and a complete runway reconstruction with new LED lighting and underground stormwater protection with new drainage pipes, catch basins and dry wells. Additionally, tall trees were taken down along the southern edge of the runway, as well as to the west on both sides of River Road and to the east.
“They impinged on the safe approach to the airport,” Burr said, adding that pilots could not use about 1,100 feet of the 3,000-foot runway for their landings. “The trees were too high, so the angle of approach (to use the whole runway) was too steep. Now, the safety of the airport is back to where it should be.”
Paul Dube, also a pilot and a Claremont resident, said it is nice to be able to use the whole runway.
Auburn, N.H.-based Stantec Consulting Services, which has worked with the airport since the 1960s, formerly as Dufresne-Henry, did all of the engineering for the work.
“The last five years, the airport has gone through a huge transformation,” Amie Gray, project manager for Stantec, said to an audience of about 30 inside the new terminal.
Gray also said the original terminal building, constructed in 1927, was carefully dismantled, not demolished, and might be reconstructed at the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire in Londonderry.
The federal government paid 90% of the project cost and the New Hampshire Department of Transportation Bureau of Aeronautics paid 5%. Claremont’s 5% share, or roughly $340,000, came from the city’s special airport reserve account. Burr said gasoline sales and lease payments for hangars and for private companies located on airport property fund the account.
“That is how we fund these projects, and there is no effect on the tax rate,” Burr said.
He also said grants could pay about $77,000 of the city’s share.
There are several hangars at the airport with 18 planes total, and a couple of private hangars on the airport property, Burr said. The airport has about 4,000 takeoffs and landings each year.
Burr believes the improvements will pay dividends to the city in the years ahead.
“We are an FAA-sponsored airport, and every time we do a project, we have to maintain the airport to a standard,” Burr said. “With the new infrastructure and terminal building, we are seeing a lot of activity with more people wanting to fly in and out of the airport.”
Among those congratulating the city for the airport rehabilitation at Tuesday’s event were U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., and state Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard, N.H. Statements from U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan were also read.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
