Expansion coming to Creston airport

Visitors to the Creston Municipal Airport are one step closer to enjoying a terminal expansion after tentative designs were submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The terminal expansion could include a new lounge, waiting area and ADA-compliant restrooms. While the expansion was approved in the airport’s five-year Capital Improvement Program by Creston City Council in December, the exact amount the FAA will contribute toward the expansion is not yet known.

“There are areas that the FAA won’t fund. They’ll fund what they consider public space, so bathrooms, waiting areas, a lounge area, vestibules, that kind of thing. They will not fund FBO offices, meeting rooms,” Bolton & Menk Aviation Project Manager Carl Byers said. “We tried to put everything the FAA would fund in the new expansion and then have renovation area of this existing one with the state grant, because they don’t have those limitations.”

The airport has secured two grants from the Iowa Department of Transportation, one for site work and one for construction. The two grants amount to almost $300,000, about a quarter of the $1.4 million project. The local match for the construction and site improvements for the city will be just over $300,000. Work on the terminal will not begin until 2026.

Other possible future projects include the addition of a parallel taxiway, the construction of an 8-unit hangar, a runway extension and wildlife fencing.