City planners in Colville, Wash., are studying a site for a possible regional airport and industrial park there that could cost about $25 million to construct.

In part, the project is intended to encourage economic development.

"As a planner, I know if a town doesn't continue to progress, it gets into neutral and starts stagnating," says Jim Lapinski, the city of Colville's building and planning department director. Lapinski says he hopes that a new airport eventually could quadruple or even quintuple the annual $3 million economic benefit the city realizes from its current municipal airport by attracting industries that need access to a larger commercial airport to do business.

"I'm looking at the future for job creation," Lapinski says.

The site that the city is considering would have plenty of space for a larger airport and an industrial park, he says. It's not clear yet whether a new airport would replace the current airport, or become a second, possibly regional, airport, but there's no reason to think the current airport couldn't continue operating, Lapinski says.

"As far as the state's concerned, this is a black hole as far as major air traffic," says current airport manager Dave Carringer. Colville's municipal airport, which is about 60 acres in size and has a 2,700-foot-long runway, is fine for general aviation, but is so confined by its location that it can't be expanded to serve larger aircraft, he says. It's located on the northeast side of the city, near Colville High School, and the city owns and operates it, leasing out space there for about a dozen private hangars.

"We need an airport that supports more of a commercial business," with a runway about 5,000 feet long, he says. Carringer says efforts to find a suitable site have fallen short in the past.

An initial feasibility study of the 164-acre site under study now, located just northeast of Colville in an unincorporated part of Stevens County, has been completed, and the city is in the third month of a one-year wind study of the site. The studies are required for an airport project to be eligible for Federal Aviation Administration funding, Lapinski says.

Many details are yet to be worked out, not the least of which is finding money for such a project, Lapinski says.

"Right now, we don't have any funding," but completion of the wind study should help the city to seek money from federal and state sources, assuming that the site is deemed suitable for an airport, he says.

The city also is discussing possibilities for ownership and operation of the envisioned airport facilities, but is hesitant to get into talks about that until the site is approved by the FAA. One possibility, for example, would be the creation of a port district to own and operate the airport, Lapinski says.

The site includes between seven and nine properties, and some of it is owned by the city already, Lapinski says.

The Colville area needs an airport with the capacity for bigger planes, and the Washington state Department of Transportation already has expressed support for such a facility, he says.

As the county seat and with its location in central Stevens County, Colville is a natural choice for a regional airport, Lapinski says.