Repaving airport runway tops 2020 projects in Mt. Pleasant

MT. PLEASANT - Even in a year of many unexpected challenges, the city of Mt. Pleasant was able to forge ahead and complete a slew of projects.

The city spent approximately $6.5 million on infrastructure and paved 14 city blocks. With a busy year closing out, the city is now looking toward beginning new capital projects in 2021.

City Administrator Brent Schleisman said the biggest project the city was able to complete in 2020 was the airport runway. The city spent $4.5 million on the project to dig up and completely redo the airstrip.

The project, which wrapped up over the summer, was a necessary revamp of the facility.

'You get rated by the FAA every year on your surface, and the surface of our runway was in bad shape. That goes a long way in making sure you have a safe airport,” Schleisman said.

The city administrator said the city knew it 'had to do something” and upon inspections where core samples and borings were done, realized the base of the runway 'wasn't where it needed to be.”

'We were throwing good money over the bad by just rehabbing it so that's why we did the entire thing,” he said.

Schleisman added the project is 90 percent reimbursable by the federal government.

'Makes it easier when you get 90 cents on the dollar,” he said.

The city administrator said keeping up the local airport is incredibly important for the local economy, especially for agriculture.

'People don't realize we do a lot of ag business out of that airport. We spray a lot of farm fields in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. Hundreds of thousands of acres,” he said.

The airport is vital for local supply routes, especially when companies in the Midwest may need a part flown out quickly. Having an airport allows the city to be a takeoff place for delivery services including UPS and FedEx and to provide charter flights.

'It's those types of things that you may not see from the average point-of-view, but it's vital to have those types of services,” he said.

Another big project the city completed this year was Phase 6 of its Recreation Trail project. The project included paving just a little over a mile of road by Saunders Park, which cost approximately $477,000. The city has completed 10 miles of the trail.

Completed in mid-October, the trail provides an additional recreational space for locals to enjoy and makes walking around the city a little safer.

In addition to the trail project, the city paved an additional 14 streets, completing Phase 4 of its downtown project and a segment of West Warren Street.

'We've tried to be as aggressive as we can and try to be conscious of people's pocket books and property taxes. We're trying to keep it up, but infrastructure is never ending,” Schleisman said.

The city, which has 78 miles of paved road, attempts to improve and rehabilitate at least a mile each year, Schleisman said. The city administrator added the city generally tries to spread out paving projects throughout the city.

'They see some improvements everywhere, not just in one area,” he said.

Looking into the new year, the city will aim to complete another phase of the downtown road pavement project along with paving East Monroe Street in the industrial park area.

The city also has plans to finish replacing the remainder of Saunders Park Drive and completing the parking area, which will finalize a portion of the overall park project.

'It's going to be kind of a scaled down year next year because we don't know the complete entire impact of COVID, and so those are the only three projects as far as roads,” Schleisman said.

Without knowing the true financial impact of the pandemic, Schleisman said the city will remain conservative in its spending but has all the funds in place for the following year's projects.

'Our council works one year ahead, so what it will really impact is 2022,” he said.

In addition to roads, the city is in the middle of a multiyear sewer project, meant to improve the city's system and meet new Department of Natural Resources guidelines and rules. In 2021, the city will aim to shut down its lagoon and pipe water back to its main plant as part of that project.

'It'll be busy,” Schleisman said.