{"id":196769,"date":"2025-09-07T20:48:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=196769"},"modified":"2025-09-08T14:11:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:11:42","slug":"extended-runway-to-offer-more-business-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/09\/07\/extended-runway-to-offer-more-business-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Longer runway to offer more opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major milestone made possible through a public-private partership was celebrated during a ceremony held at the Van Wert County Regional Airport on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceremony marking a coveted runway extension took place in two areas. It began inside the JL Rice Terminal with a short gathering of airport officials, political representatives, and supporters who heard about the benefits of 1,000 feet of additional runway and 400 feet of overrun that will allow corporate airplanes to fly directly into Van Wert. Those in attendance were then bused along the runaway for a ribbon cutting ceremony, then were taken back to the terminal to observe a take off and landing on the newly extended runway.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A newly extended runway will allow more corporate airplanes to fly into the Van Wert County Regional Airport. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the ultimate gate opening to Van Wert,\u201d Airport Board President Andrew Davis said. \u201cThis gives the opportunity for businesses from all over the country \u2013 all over the world \u2013 to come directly into Van Wert without having to go somewhere else first. It\u2019s a big step for the city, the county and the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost people really don\u2019t understand the economic impact of what you\u2019ve just done here,\u201d said Scott Niswonger, who helped finance the project. \u201cInsurance requirements for most jet airplanes are for 5,000 feet and now we have 5.005 feet. As a matter of fact, until we did that, our airplane electronic airport information\u2026if it\u2019s less than 5,000 feet, it\u2019s not in our database because our insurance won\u2019t cover anything less than that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you\u2019ve done is open this community up to economic development in a way it hasn\u2019t seen,\u201d the Van Wert native added. \u201cVan Wert is really now open for business and when that airplane parks out there and prospects come through these doors, I\u2019ll be darned if we don\u2019t show pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis noted none of the planes flying will be commercial-size, but the largest private aircraft will be able to come in without restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans for the runaway extension were put into motion in 2022 and the layout plan was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration the following year. Bids for the project were opened in October of 2024 and groundbreaking took place a month later. Actual construction began in May of this year and the runway officially opened in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Funding for the $2.4 million extension came from several sources, including the State of Ohio via House Bill 2 funds, the City of Van Wert, the Van Wert County Commissioners along with a substantial number of private donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are people who want to fly in here and this is going to allow them to do that,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the extension project complete, Davis noted the airport board will turn its attention to other potential projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cODOT just rolled out a new program that will start in October where they\u2019re looking to fund new projects, so we\u2019re going to do everything we can to get something together to get some of those funds,\u201d he stated. \u201cAnything we can do to bring local tax dollars back into Van Wert, we\u2019re going to try to get. As long as we have the funding to fund our portion of it we\u2019re going to take advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Scott Niwsonger, Andrew Davis and others cut the ribbon on the newly extended runway at the Van Wert County Regional Airport. Bob Barnes photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor A major milestone made possible through a public-private partership was celebrated during a ceremony held at the Van Wert County Regional Airport on Saturday. The ceremony marking a coveted runway extension took place in two areas. It began inside the JL Rice Terminal with a short gathering of airport officials, political representatives, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 11:50:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196769"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196849,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196769\/revisions\/196849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}