North county airport runway extension gets federal OK

North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport runway will be extended to 6,000 feet after lengthy federal review.

The federal government has given the green light to a runway extension at the north county airport after a decade of planning. 

Federal officials approved a five-year environmental study in November, clearing the way for construction to start in 2027.

Officials once anticipated the runway would be completed in 2025 but lost time because of COVID-19.

The approval represents a milestone for the $30 million project, which will extend the airport’s diagonal runway from 4,300 feet to 6,000 feet, allowing for more jets, including Cessnas and Gulfstreams.

The project would add 2,500 flights in and out per year, in addition to the 110,346 already anticipated by 2030. Jets will account for about 700 of those additional flights.  

“The project is not only important to Palm Beach County, but also to the South Florida region as a whole,” county airports spokesperson Rebeca Krogman wrote in response to questions from Stet News. “The demand for general aviation facilities continues to exceed the available supply throughout Florida.” 

The North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport supports 467 jobs and generates more than $77 million a year in economic impact, she said. 

County airport officials say a designer will be chosen this summer, and construction on the two-year project could start in early 2027 after approving a contractor.

In 2019, the county hired consultants who were paid $1 million to conduct an environmental assessment of the project. 

Environmental Science Associates of Tampa found that extending the runway and a taxiway, along with moving part of an airport access road, would destroy 12.5 acres of wetlands. Trees on another 21 acres along the edge of the runway would need to be trimmed. 

The county will work with the South Florida Water Management District to determine how it is going to make up for the lost wetlands. 

The length of the existing runway causes problems for heavier planes, the federal Finding of No Significant Impact found. 

That issue forced planes to divert to Witham Field in Martin County or Palm Beach International Airport, Krogman said. 

The project includes building an air traffic control tower, which the city of Palm Beach Gardens required when it signed off on the expansion in 2016. 

Federal, state and local airport money will pay for the project, Krogman said. 

The county still needs permits from the water management district, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

For residents worried about noise — especially those in the nearby Avenir neighborhood, where construction began on nearly 4,000 homes after the city signed off on the airport expansion plan in 2016 — the environmental study found the expansion would not produce dangerous noise levels outside the airport property.