If you take Plaza Street on your way to school you probably have noticed there is change occurring. Many trees have been cut down and the land has been completely scraped down, and there is a constant parade of trucks hauling dirt. The reason that all this construction is going on is because of a plan that is 52 years in the making, a plan to expand the runway at the Albert Lea Municipal Airport.

“It has always been the plan to redo the runway,” said airport manager Jim Hanson. “The old one can’t be overlaid anymore so we have to do it now.”

The existing runway is 4,500 feet and 5,000 feet is the default minimum for the insurance companies of most corporate flight departments. Albert Lea’s runway is the shortest for a town of its size in the state. The Albert Lea airport was built about the same time as airports in Owatonna, Austin, Faribault, and Fairmont.

“All of those airports have been redone,” Hanson said. “We have gotten everything out of ours and then some.”

When all the projects are over Albert Lea will have a new 5,000 foot runway about 300 feet west of the old one. That has been the plan since the airport first opened in 1955. The current runway will be used as a taxi way to the new one. The 52-year-old runway lights, which are not in conduit and no longer produced will be replaced. Plaza Street will be re-routed to run along Interstate 90 then rejoin its current path near Plaza landscaping.

Construction on the runway will begin as soon as the Plaza Street construction ends. The new runway should be ready in two to four years. Funding for the project will be 95 percent federal and 5 percent local.