Funding in place to build new terminal at Thompson airport

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This article was published 28/11/2023 (688 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After many years of effort funding is now in place to build a much-needed new terminal building and ancillary infrastructure at the Thompson Regional Airport

In addition to a new terminal that will be more than twice the size of the existing one, surrounding transportation and water infrastructure will be upgraded as well with a new water treatment facility and new apron and taxiways on the airside.

In total, it is a $135 million project.

“It’s massive,” said Curtis Ross the CEO of the Thompson Regional Airport Authority, who came out of retirement to marshal the project through.

“If you say it quickly it doesn’t sound as much,” he joked.

Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) has made public a $52-million commitment to the project in the form of a long-term loan. The project will also access about $18 million from the federal government’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and about $15 million to $20 million of the airport authority’s own funds.

But Ross said it was the commitment made by the provincial government that really got the dominoes to start falling with the other piece of financing to complete the project.

Although it has not yet been publicly announced, the province has committed to between $15 million and $20 million for various elements of the project.

While the CIB as been talking with officials at the Thompson Airport Authority for at least two years, Ross said he’s been working on the project for 17 years.

That’s how long ago an engineering report stated that the terminal building had five years of life left because of the discontinuous permafrost that was causing the building to sink.

The existing 14,000-square-foot terminal building will be replaced with a new 40,000-square-foot modern replacement.

Hillary Thatcher, managing director, investments, Indigenous and Northern infrastructure at Canada Infrastructure Bank, said it’s more difficult to put together funding packages for a piece of infrastructure like the Thompson airport, which is an important hub for the region but does not generate lots of revenue and is hard to finance.

“It’s a very gratifying project for us,” she said. “Not only is it our first airport project, but the airport serves a critical need in the North and is so often forgotten. We also know that the state of the terminal building was no one in Thompson’s fault. The permafrost first is lifting.”

The airport has a pretty steady track record of about 80,000 passengers per year and it services about 37 northern communities, including 15 remote Indigenous communities only accessible by air and ice roads.

It’s an important hub for medical patients from the Northern communities all the way to Nunavut. It’s also a very busy cargo hub.

Ross said much of the funding was in place before the pandemic, but it had to be paused. When the project was revived costs increased dramatically with the terminal building coming in 35 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic quote.

“We had to scramble once again,” he said.

The airport is located six kilometres outside the municipality of Thompson and has to be responsible for its own water system. Up until just a couple of years ago the airport had to truck in all of its potable water from Thompson.

The $135 million total includes the cost of a new water treatment facility as well as a new sewage lagoon.

Some of that work is already well underway. The new terminal building is expected to be finished and commissioned by the spring of 2025.

Not surprisingly the news has been met with a lot of excitement in Thompson.

Colleen Smook, mayor of Thompson, said “Thompson is the Hub of the North, serving a region of 55,000 people. Northern Manitobans rely on the Thompson Regional Airport to travel to and from the City of Thompson for work, education, shopping, tourism and health care. This historic investment in important northern infrastructure is great news for the airport, for Thompson and for the north.”

Walter Wastesicoot, Grand Chief, Keewatin Tribal Council, said that as a founding member of the Thompson Regional Airport Authority, it’s great to see such a major development come to fruition.

“This project represents a major achievement not only for the City of Thompson but the entire region. Collaborating with the CIB and the Province of Manitoba has been instrumental in securing funds to re-develop the airport infrastructure which will have an enormous impact on the quality of life for all residents within the region.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca