WILLIAMSTOWN — Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport officials are optimistic the runway won’t be the only thing being upgraded this spring.

After Tuesday’s Wood County Airport Authority meeting, authority President Bill Richardson signed a document accepting the offer for an $8 million federal grant for the runway project, which requires no matching funds. A second federal grant of $2.3 million was announced in November, this one to upgrade to LED lighting on the main runway.

“What I’d like to see happen is while we’re closed for the runway rehab, we get the lighting done.” airport Manager Glen Kelly said during the meeting.

The runway project is expected to begin in late May or early June. The airport will be closed to airplane traffic for approximately three weeks, although helicopters can still take off and land and other operations will continue as usual.

Authority member Terry Moore asked if airport engineer of record Michael Baker Engineering thought the lighting project could be ready to go by then.

“They say it’s going to be tight,” Kelly said.

Kelly also went over a presentation he made last week to the Wood County Commission, discussing improvements that have been made at the airport and those he hoped to tackle in the future.

Kelly listed his top three priorities as replacing or repairing the airport terminal roof, which could cost $300,000 to $450,000 according to some estimates; updating the restrooms; and replacing the wallpaper throughout the airport with a paintable covering that will be easier to maintain. It’s important for the airport to serve as a welcoming gateway and give arriving passengers a positive impression of the area, he said.

Ideally, some of that work could be done while the airport is closed for the runway project, Kelly said.

One project that likely can’t wait is repairing multiple leaks in the general aviation building roof.

“I think I’m going to have to do an emergency buy and get that fixed,” Kelly said. “It’s over 20 years old. We don’t want any serious damage done to the structure or anything else.”

In other business, the airport recorded 516 enplanements in November, the highest number of passengers departing since 542 in December 2016. It’s the third month enplanements have topped 500 since Contour Airlines took over service in December 2018.

The total is a massive jump from November 2018, when previous carrier Via Air ceased operations early as it dealt with maintenance and financial issues. The airport is on pace to have more than 5,000 enplanements for the first year since 2014.

That’s halfway to Kelly’s goal of 10,000 enplanements, which would boost the airport’s annual Airport Improvement Program allocation from $150,000 to $1 million. That would help with the various infrastructure projects he discussed.

Contour completed all of its scheduled flights in November, and was ranked No. 1 among North American airlines for on-time completion percentage for the second month in a row, Kelly said.