History
Starting in the 1950s, private pilots in the area had constructed a small airport on land leased from Penn State, just north of State College. Penn State assumed the lease and assets of the airport in 1972. The Centre County Airport Authority was created to manage the development of the airport. A permanent passenger terminal was built in 1985. A new passenger terminal was completed in 1993, and cargo operations moved to the original terminal building. The airport underwent a runway expansion project in 1997, and the main runway was lengthened to 6,701 ft (2,042 m). A new general aviation hangar was built in 2001.
Construction on the airport's new control tower began on January 8, 2010 and was completed in early August 2011. The Airport Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) went operational on September 1, 2011 and is operated by Midwest Air Traffic Control under the Federal Contract Tower Program.
In 2011, there were 143,472 enplanements according to the U.S. Department of Transportation making University Park Airport the 6th busiest airport in Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: University Park Airport
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