MORGANTOWN – In March, the Morgantown Municipal Airport runway extension project surpassed five years under construction.
It’s a notable anniversary as the city initially expected the whole thing would be pretty much done in about that time.
That’s what officials said in November 2019 when the Federal Aviation Administration finally concurred that the project was worthy of federal support and cleared to move forward.
But from the start, that federal support – the primary funding source for the project – started arriving in far smaller allocations than anticipated.
The result?
A 1,001-foot extension the city hoped would take five years and $50 million is kinda up in the air – somewhere in the middle – and getting more expensive by the day.
Next week, the city is expected to award a bid for the next phase of work. At that point, federal investment in the project will already be in the mid-$40 millions.
“We have laid the primary foundation for the runway embankment construction,” Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli said, explaining the matter of building up 150 vertical feet of earth to support the runway remains.
“The timeline to completion is highly dependent on federal funding, so it’s difficult to pinpoint,” Muzzarelli explained. “Getting larger funding amounts lets us capture economies of scale and draw in larger-scale contractors.”
To that end, the city is hoping for a little senatorial assistance.
Mayor Danielle Trumble explained that during talks with U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s office, it was suggested the city make a sizable request.
It did.
“We submitted a request to Senators Capito and Justice for $25 million,” Muzzarelli said. “With early estimates, we believe this would bring the embankment up roughly another 60 feet.”
As in 60 feet of the 150 needed.
While nobody really knows how long the runway extension project will take or what it will ultimately cost, there’s far more certainty about what it means to the city.
“It’s absolutely critical. I really think it’s one of those really few opportunities that can raise our long-term economic ceiling,” Morgantown City Councilor Mark Downs said. “This can really raise the bar for us, for the university, for the hospitals; the whole community. This is not a conceptual thing. It’s a project that we’ve been working on. It’s as shovel-ready as it gets. We literally just need to move the dirt from one place to another to complete it.”
As it turns out, the place where the dirt is getting moved from is another significant piece of why the project is so crucial.
The estimated 4.4 million cubic yards of dirt needed to extend the runway is being pulled from the future site of an initial 54 developable acres that will become the I-68 Commerce Park.
“The runway extension by itself is critical for what it means to the airport in terms of the aircraft it can accommodate and the quality of air service, but also the development of the park, which allows us to bring probably as much as a million square feet on that property creating literally hundreds of jobs,” Morgantown Area Partnership President and CEO Russ Rogerson said.
By way of comparison, the Mountaintop Beverage facility in the Morgantown Industrial Park is currently 330,000 square feet.
Rogerson said the addition of jet service brought in by new Essential Air Service carrier SkyWest Airlines has already been a boon to the city.
The data backs that up.
In 2025 – the first year with SkyWest in place – MGW surpassed 15,300 enplanements, or paying customers. That number nearly doubled the 7,700 enplanements from 2024 and marked the first time since 2011 the airport surpassed the 10,000-enplanement threshold critical for federal funding.
Looking forward, Rogerson said the importance of the intertwined runway extension and commerce park projects cannot be overstated in terms of importance to both the city and the wider area.
Trumble agreed.
“The prospect of putting that kind of commercial development within city limits is very important to the city, but it’s also extraordinarily important for the university and the hospital systems; even places like the Morgantown Industrial Park, which is not in the city, but having access to an airport that’s more usable is beneficial to everyone,” she said.
