The City of Merritt will be using a $500,000 grant from the province’s rural economic diversification program to make improvements at the local airport.

Mayor Mike Goetz says the work being done will allow the empty lots to be leased out to light industrial, commercial, and manufacturing businesses.

“We have six or seven lots up there that we could lease out, or do something with, but until we level them down and get them to where they could be marketable, we can’t do anything with it,” Goetz said.

“This is something we have been looking at for 40 years.”

Goetz says the City of Merritt will use that grant money to get the property flattened.

“So we can market the properties and put a security fence around the whole thing and just kind of spruce up our airport a little bit because we don’t have proper safety fences up there and the airport does have some land that we can market and make some money off of rather than it sitting there, empty,” he said.

Since Goetz says property near the airport will “boom” soon, the work at the airport is “pre-production.”

“We want to be proactive and get ahead of the game so when people come and look at the land out there that has been sold, and what they can do with it, they can see that they do have access to the airport from all angles and the airport is secure with the proper runway fencing.”

He notes future airport projects in Merritt will be to pave one of the main runways, and install lights.