Karen Shuey: Reading Regional Airport receives $3 million Pa. grant
Apr. 25—The Regional Regional Airport has been awarded a $3 million grant from the state to help prepare a site for a proposed development venture at the Bern Township airfield.
Zackary Tempesco, director of the airport, said Monday that the money will used to complete site preparation costs to build a full-service fixed base operation proposed by Coral Aviation Group.
"The Reading Regional Airport Authority is currently reviewing a development proposal against our minimum standards for approval," he said. "The grant funding is intended to prepare the site along MacArthur Road for final development."
The grant was announced Monday along with funding for projects at nine other airports across the state. A total of $10 million was awarded to support a total of 12 projects through the Aviation Transportation Assistance Program.
"Aviation plays a vital role in keeping our state's economy moving," Gov. Tom Wolf said in a press release. "These investments will help Pennsylvania's airports operate safely, expand to meet current demands and sustain growth well into the future."
The proposed project
James Dastra, president of Coral, has told the authority that he so far has commitments to fill a 50,000-square-foot hangar as well as 25,000 square feet of office space.
The facility would sit on 17 acres that Coral would lease from the airport authority. It would include three fuel tanks: two 12,000-gallon jet tanks and a 10,000-gallon aviation gasoline tank.
Dastra said the total cost of the project is expected to be about $15 to $20 million.
Coral pursued the grant through the Aviation Transportation Assistance Program to help cover the cost of preparing the site. The authority applied for the grant on Coral's behalf in December. The company requested $3 million to cover part of the $8 million in projected site preparation costs. The rest of the money will have to be supplied by Coral.
Dastra has said Coral is initially planning to provide hanger space and fueling services to Quest Diagnostics at the new facility, with hopes of future expansion. Quest bases a fleet of airplanes at the airport, which transport human blood and tissue samples from their offices to laboratories for various medical tests.
Following an airport authority meeting last month, Scott Borton, director of flight operations at Quest, confirmed that Quest needs more space and is considering Coral's proposal as a possible solution.
Borton said the current situation at the airport no longer meets Quest's needs, saying the company is looking for the most efficient way to serve its customers.
"We can keep our airplanes at other airports just to gain the space we need, but then that becomes a service issue for us," he said. "It's all about trying to provide the highest level of service to our patients. We want the turnaround time to be as quick as possible."
Borton said Dastra is the one driving the project. He said Coral came to Quest to see if they would be interested in serving as the anchor for the new facility, knowing the company was in need of more space.
Coral's plan has received pushback from a pair of companies already operating full-service fixed base operations at the airfield that claim the airport can't sustain a third operation and say the project would be detrimental to their already stressed financial situations.