Castor Announces $8 Million Through Recovery Act For Tampa's Airport
Tampa,
Mar 23 -
Congresswoman Kathy Castor announced today that Tampa International Airport will receive $8 million through President Obama’s Recovery Act, enabling projects at the airport to be expedited and leading to the creation of hundreds of well-paying jobs in the Tampa Bay area by this summer.
“We’re going to put people to work with these Recovery Plan dollars,” Castor said. “The construction sector in Tampa Bay has been particularly hard hit. This will put hundreds of people back to work and modernize our airport.”
The money will go toward reconstructing Taxiway B. Jobs will be in site work, concrete work, utilities and electrics. Equipment operators and haulers also will be needed. The jobs pay between $19 and $24 an hour. Folks hired for this construction could be working as early as this summer. Louis Miller, airport director, said the money will be a catalyst for the taxiway reconstruction and a related and expedited stormwater project, which, taken together, will result in the creation of 265 jobs.
Miller joined Castor in making the announcement.
“We’re going to have actual people going to work,” Miller said. “It’s really going to help our community.”
The Recovery Act includes $1.1 billion for airport improvements through the Federal Aviation Administration.
This reconstruction of Taxiway B will elevate the taxiway so it will allow for a transportation corridor to connect to a new north terminal. This will accommodate the future passenger traffic growth coming through our airport.
“It’s jobs like these that will help pull us out of this economic downturn,” Castor said.
