The airport hangar project at Katama Airfield is getting closer.
A dilapidated World War II hangar at Katama Airfield will be demolished in the next two weeks to make way for an updated hangar, town administrator James Hagerty told the board of selectmen Tuesday.
“COVID slowed everything down, and the construction moratorium slowed everything down,” Hagerty said. “That hangar has been there a good amount of time. It will be demolished in the next two weeks to make way for what the town approved when the town appropriated a year and a half ago.”
In 2019, Edgartown voters approved $950,000 to engineer, demolish, and build a new hangar. Then in January, Katama Airfield received a $190,000 gift to be used to pay for steel components and a hangar door.
“So I think it’s good news the project is coming full circle,” Hagerty said of the upcoming demolition. Chair Arthur Smadbeck and selectman Margaret Serpa agreed.
“That is good news. It’s been a long process,” Serpa said.
In other news, the board of selectmen got an update from Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC) executive director Liz Argo on the overall impact of the cooperative, as well as specifics about two projects involving Edgartown.
Argo estimated CVEC has saved member towns $17 million. In Edgartown, the amount the town benefited dropped from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2020 by more than $23,000, between the Katama Airfield and Nunnepog Well solar arrays. “Katama produced very well, you made more money than we would have anticipated,” Argo told the board.
Nunnepog made slightly less electricity than anticipated, but the town’s minimum return is guaranteed, Argo said.