Oberstar touts stimulus spending at airport groundbreaking by Peter Passi Appearing in Duluth News Tribune on 2009-09-02. Earth-moving equipment rumbled in the background Tuesday afternoon even as U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar prepared to heft a golden shovelful of dirt at a ceremonial groundbreaking for Duluth International Airport’s new terminal building. Oberstar, D-Chisholm., and others have done a lot of heavy lifting to bring the project to fruition, said Nancy Norr, chairwoman of the Duluth Airport Authority. “This project has been six years in the making,” she said. Already the project has led to the creation of more than 200 construction jobs, as workers grade the site, install utilities and other infrastructure, build roadways and pave parking areas. This initial work, plus the completion of detailed building plans, is expected to consume about $10.2 million. The total cost of the project is expected to be about $65 million, and to leverage federal funding, the Duluth Airport Authority will seek an additional $11.7 million in state bonding money next year. State Reps. Mary Murphy, DFL-Hermantown, and Roger Reinert, DFL-Duluth, pledged their continued support for the terminal. “We are committed to any project that helps make Duluth a hub for transportation and helps provide jobs, jobs, jobs, as Gov. Perpich used to say,” Murphy quipped. If funding continues to flow to the project, the new terminal could be completed by 2012 or 2013. During tough economic times, Duluth Mayor Don Ness said some communities may have a tendency to pull back, but that’s not the approach he espouses. “This is the right time to invest in our community and to put people back to work today,” he said. Ness cited the airport terminal and the construction of a new arena at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center as “key investments and an indication of how optimistic we are about our future.” “We see progress at work, and we see optimism about our future at work here today,” said Ness. Oberstar pointed to the project as evidence that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is working. In all, $7.1 million in stimulus money was earmarked for the terminal, but because of favorable bids, $1.5 million of that sum was returned to the federal government for other projects, said Brian Ryks, executive director of the Duluth Airport Authority. “That stimulus money was key to leveraging state funding and vice-versa,” Ryks said. “We needed both sources to pull the whole package together.” In Minnesota alone, Oberstar said more than 3,000 people have been put to work building roads and tackling other projects funded with federal stimulus money. Oberstar hinted that he may go to bat for additional improvements at Duluth International Airport after construction of the new terminal building. Commenting on the airfield’s aged traffic control tower, he said: “That thing is almost as old as I am, but it’s in worse shape.”

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