CIRA hopes to boost community economic impact through air cargo road
The Central Illinois Regional Airport is giving a big thank-you to Congressman Darin LaHood for coming through with $1.5 million in grant money.
[We’re]… “very grateful for all the work he's done intrepidly over these last couple of years for the project,” said Airport Authority Board Chair Alan Sender.
The money will go toward planning and part of the construction of an air cargo road extending Airport Road to the south.
"And when built, [it] could pave the way to some new commercial and business development on an undeveloped part, but a very valuable tract of Route 9, prime Route 9 property on Empire Street," Sender said at news conference Monday at the airport.
The total project cost will be about $6 million. Sender said CIRA has committed about $1.5 million of its own money. The airport already has spent some of that on a redesign of the Airport Road-Route 9 intersection. That leaves at least a $3 million gap in funding.
“We are working assiduously on trying to close that gap, work…