Economy Roundup: DPI and Airport Concerns

Governor Rauner's awkward apology tour with local officials may have grabbed the most headlines and social media posts of him looking even more awkward on a bus... but a serious economic issue having to do with concerns over the future Discovery Partners Institute may have gone overlooked in the madness. From Sunday's News-Gazette:

Tom Kacich | Gov. Rauner's words bolster nagging fears about DPI
...
But there was more to worry about in Rauner's remarks, that nagging concern that local leaders have about the proposed Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago's South Loop, where the UI is supposed to lead a multi-university research institute. They worry that the talent, leadership and money at the Urbana campus might be shifted to Chicago. Rauner's comments didn't help.

"We can start some companies there" in Champaign-Urbana, Rauner said, "but what we need to do is help the University of Illinois expand in Chicago, expand into Rockford and Peoria, that have large economic systems and great, great companies already ... and a diverse, large workforce and then use their innovation and technology and ability, get their students integrated in the local economy, and we can boom. If we get the U of I to open a campus here down on Roosevelt Road, which is what we're striving to do and get them to partner with UC, Northwestern, Tel Aviv and Technion in Israel, their new partners for this, we can have some of the great innovation and some of the fastest-growing companies right here in the state of Illinois."

Rauner's talk of a campus on Roosevelt Road flies in the face of assurances from others that this would not become another UI campus. And it worries others, like Fox, who think the Urbana campus and community need to be more aggressive in fighting for state support.

More at the full article here. If that wasn't concerning enough, United Airlines broke the bad news this week that they won't continue service here. From Tuesday's News-Gazette:

United cancels service at Willard; pilot shortage cited
Barely a year after Willard Airport added flights from United Airlines, the carrier is canceling service at the University of Illinois-owned facility.

Willard Executive Director Gene Cossey confirmed the cancellation Monday.

“September 4 will be their last day of service for a while,” he said. “At this point, we don’t know what their plans will be after that.”

He blamed a nationwide pilot shortage...

Just last week, area officials touted a 10-year record in enplanements and adding service from United at Willard in countering Gov. Bruce Rauner’s remarks in a radio interview about Champaign-Urbana not being able to retain tech businesses because it had “no convenient transportation” and other perceived issues. (Rauner apologized to C-U officials and is set to visit three area businesses Tuesday.)

The United service appeared to be doing well, adding customers without taking away from American...

In May, Cossey said there’s plenty of demand for new flights and airlines.

“There’s a million people a year who want to fly in and out of our area, and we only have about 300,000 seats,” Cossey said in May.

Full article on that here.

Willard Master Plan

A master plan project for the area's airport is in the works that could determine future improvements and/or expansion. The project could cost around $1.3 million (with the FAA covering roughly 90%) would likely be completed in 2019. From WCCU:

A master plan is in the works for Willard Airport.

Willard Airport Executive Director Gene Cossey said a master plan is a Federal Aviation Administration requirement that helps determine the long-term development plans of an airport.

"It's a series of studies," Cossey said. "First of all we start by studying passenger demand."

Cossey hopes to use this data as a tool in expanding growth for the airport.

He said the data will be used to measure the demand, especially when it comes to the need for bringing additional airlines to the airport.

"How can we use that study and this data to the airlines and convince them this is a good spot to bring additional services into," Cossey said.

More at the full article and video segment here. The News-Gazette had even more details a couple days ago:

Willard's master-plan discussions branch off into outlets, TVs
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"One thing we have seen in our new leakage study is overall passenger demand growth for this region has grown by over 100 percent," Cossey said. "Unfortunately, with just American and just United, even with the growth we have, we don't have enough to meet that capacity and demand. People have to go somewhere else. There's a million people a year who want to fly in and out of our area, and we only have about 300,000 seats."

The master plan isn't expected to make recommendations to change the size of the airfield but could include some expansions to the terminal, especially since it was built for pre-9/11 security standards...

The airport has already started working on the master plan and hopes to complete it by the end of 2019.

The plan will cost about $1.3 million to create, Cossey said, with the FAA picking up 90 percent of that, and the state and airport splitting the rest.

"The FAA looks at funding the airport from the attitude of funding what they would consider a public good or a common good. They would look at funding those things that would be beneficial to everyone. That's because the money that they fund it from comes from everyone. It comes from aviation fuel taxes and from surcharges on your aviation ticket," Cossey said. "What we do with the master plan is we try to identify those things that the FAA will fund and that we can get public funding on that capitalize and leverage that money as much as possible."

That full article here with a link to the airport's own information page on this here: cmimasterplan.com.

Observatory Upgrade and Open House

Tomorrow, Saturday April 21st at 3pm will be the ribbon cutting ceremony for the upgraded Prairie Winds Observatory. There will be an open house that night (weather permitting) between 8:30 and 10pm. From the News-Gazette today:

C-U Astronomical Society ready to widen its window to the sky

On Saturday, the prairies of East Central Illinois will seem a little closer to the stars.

On its lot just southwest of Willard Airport, the Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society will cut the ribbon on the Prairie Winds Observatory.

It's been a four-year project for Dave Leake, director of the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College, and astronomer James Wehmer. But now, they've got the ability to bring more people into their observatory to look at more stars in the sky and have room to expand in the future...

They will also make astronomical research easier and allow analysts to search for near-earth asteroids, monitor lunar crater formations, follow the path of stars and more. It's all ADA accessible now, too.

For Wehmer though, refurbishing the group's 100-year-old 16-inch telescope named "Ruby" was the true test; it's now the pride and joy of the society.

"That's our prime instrument; the flagship telescope," he said. "It's the biggest GoTO 'scope that we've got, and I get to put my name down in the history of it. I did that."

Building the structure was mostly done with contract work, volunteer hours and about $36,000, mainly coming from society members.

Full article here.

Aviation Program Becomes Permanent

In local news that intersects area education, transportation, and economic issues, the News-Gazette highlighted a local aviation program's new status.

Institution of Aviation Program becomes permanent
After three years as a grants-funded program at Parkland College, the former University of Illinois Institute of Aviation will become a regular academic program and institutional department at the Champaign based community college.

The Parkland board of trustees Wednesday night unanimously approved making the change during a meeting at the Institute of Aviation in the old Willard Airport terminal south of Champaign.

More funding and other details in the full article. (link to be updated)

Willard General Update

The Urbana City Council will host a Willard representative who will give details on our area airport. The News-Gazette blurb today:

Willard Airport update on agenda
URBANA — The city council will receive a briefing about Willard Airport on Monday night, almost a year after United Airlines joined American in flying out of Savoy.

Mayor Diane Marlin said a Willard representative will discuss flight data and give a general update.

Willard saw a 12 percent increase in departing

passengers last year, according to Executive Director Gene Cossey.

That increase was aided by the 16,896 departing passengers on United flights last year, he said.

[UPDATE: From the News-Gazette coverage of last night's Urbana City Council meeting (agenda here, video here). The airport report (direct video link here) showed the highest traffic in a decade:

In other business, the city council received an update on Willard Airport from Gene Cossey, its executive director.

Willard added its second airline, United, last June, and Cossey said it hasn’t taken anything away from the airport’s American Airlines flights. That and the addition of some more American flights helped 2017 become “a record year over any other years we’ve had since 2007,” he said...

2017 also saw a new Willard website where flights can be booked directly and the addition of an Einstein’s Bagels — the airport’s first concessions offering since about 2000, Cossey said.

Coming to the airport this year is an automated parking system that aims to speed up the parking process.]