New Hangars, Extended Runways And Tower Among Hopes For BKV

In a climate that increasingly opposes airport development, you can at least say that Hernando County Airport (BKV) Director Don Silvernell has an appropriately penitent attitude.

"This is the wish list," Silvernell said last week at the public display of the updated 20-year master plan for the Brooksville, FL airport.

Representatives from the city, the Florida Department of Transportation, and the FAA are now reviewing plans that call for the addition of 116 aircraft parking spaces to the airport, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The revisions also call for expanding the airport's runways, adding both a general aviation terminal and a control tower, and the creation of significantly more hangar space -- all in the name of meeting expected growth demands.

"Look at how things have changed in the last two years and just since the [Suncoast Parkway] opened,"said Philip Jufko, a transportation consultant for the Tampa-based LPA Group. He called the revised plan "a 20-year snapshot, a 20-year forecast" for the central Florida airport's needs.

In 2004, there were 72,696 operations at the airport. Forecasts call for the total to increase to over 80,000 by 2009, and to nearly 100,000 by 2024. Even then, that total might be too low, according to some estimates.

While most of the funding for the improvements would come from the Florida DOT and the FAA -- with the FAA paying up to 95 percent of the costs on some projects -- many question if funding will ever be available to grant all of Silvernell's wishes.

"...If the money isn't there, we don't build it," said Philip Jufko, a transportation consultant for the Tampa-based LPA Group who was onhand for the presentation.

Assuming the DOT and FAA sign off on the plan, Hernando County commissioners would then review the plan sometime early next year. Silvernell said that some projects would take as little as three-to-five years to finish, with others taking five-to-10 years.

"The timetable is really a function of funding," according to Jufko.

FMI: www.co.hernando.fl.us/Airport