$12.5 million Wyoming Valley Airport project takes off

Luzerne County officials held a groundbreaking Tuesday for a $12.5 million project at the county-owned Wyoming Valley Airport in Forty Fort and Wyoming.

It is the first significant capital investment at the 110-acre complex in decades, officials have said.

The project will include construction of two new buildings housing 24 hangars along with the taxiways and lanes required for planes to access them, said David Jones, a project engineer at Delta Airport Consultants Inc., which is handling engineering and planning for these projects.

Officials expect the new hangars to fill up and generate revenue because there is currently a waiting list of pilots and companies interested in parking their planes at the airport.

A new above-ground jet fuel tank and dispensing area, known as a “Jet-A” facility, and a helicopter fuel parking pad are also part of the project, Jones said.

Valley Aviation Inc., the airport’s longtime fixed base operator, has said a new fueling facility is needed to comply with aviation requirements.

A real-time, automated weather station also will be added to report critical meteorological conditions to pilots landing and departing at the airport, such as wind speed and direction, temperature, dew point, altimeter settings, density altitude, visibility, and precipitation, officials said.

This system will share data with the national weather network, contributing to more accurate local forecasts, and increase the overall safety of airspace around the airport, the county said.

County Council had earmarked $8.3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding toward the project, and other outside aviation funding has been awarded or sought to make up the difference, officials said.

All permits have been secured, and contracts were awarded to several entities to perform the work.

American Rescue projects must be completed by the end of this year to comply with federal regulations.

During Tuesday’s groundbreaking, county Manager Romilda Crocamo told the group the county “has had a habit of selling itself short” for too long.

“We’d patch things up, make do, and move on. We accepted less because somewhere along the way, we started to believe we deserved less,” Crocamo said. “That ends today.”

The project is a “declaration that this county, this community, is worthy of world-class infrastructure” and a gateway “they can be proud of,” she said.

“Every great community eventually reaches a turning point — a moment where the people who live there choose to invest in themselves, to say that their home is worth it, that their children are worth it, that their neighbors, their businesses, their legacy are worth it,” Crocamo said. “This is that moment for us.”

Council Chairman Jimmy Sabatino said the project is a “shining example” of what is ahead for the county.

“This is the bright part of the story,” he said.

Jones said the site of the groundbreaking will be “more exciting” six months from now when the new infrastructure is in place.

The automated weather system will be “invaluable” to pilots, including himself, Jones said.

The county acquired the airport in the 1940s.

In addition to serving commercial and recreational pilots, the airport is used by medevac helicopters and state police aircraft that regularly land there to fuel up without delays they encounter elsewhere. The airport also has a busy pilot training program that addresses a pilot shortage, officials have said.