ANDERSON — With three Federal Aviation Administration grants in the past year, Anderson Municipal Airport has been a place of much investment on the part of the national air travel controlling agency.

The airport’s recent taxiway moving project is funded through completion with the most recent FAA grant, received last week, airport manager Steve Darlington said. The grant for $1,851,969 will finish phase four of the project, which is moving the taxiway and replacing old wiring and lights that have lit the taxiway since the 1960s.

The airport still is receiving payments on previous FAA grants for $2,452,395, also for the taxiway project, and $62,510 to repair a wildlife fence along the property, Darlington said.

“Normally we’ll have one grant a year,” Darlington said. “It’s kind of unusual to get this. We were kind of surprised to get it so soon. We weren’t finished with the other one.”

The multi-million-dollar taxiway project also has made use of federal grants of $2,953,175 and $1,378,104, which have run out. Ninety-five percent of the project has been paid for by FAA grants, 2.5 percent by local government and 2.5 percent by the state, Darlington said.

The project includes replacing the lighting, moving a large amount of dirt and the taxiway to make the area safer and a large drainage project that goes along with the taxiway move.

“It’s a lot of little things that you don’t see that’s costly and takes time,” Darlington said. “It’s kind of a combination safety thing, upgrade and it’s taking care of some of our infrastructure improvements.”

The project is expected to be finished within the next year, he said.

The FAA probably made the decision to give last week’s grant a few years ago, when the project first was under way and the agency decided to fund the first stages of it, said Tony Molinaro, FAA spokesman for the Great Lakes Region.

“It was probably looked at as a good thing operationally to do,” he said. “There must have been a real need.”

The taxiway project will make the airport more accessible and usable for aircraft, which can help promote the airport and city’s economic development, Darlington said.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, who serves the Anderson area, praised in a recent news release the FAA’s decision to fund Anderson Airport’s taxiway project.

“The construction of the new taxiway will allow the airport to better serve existing aircraft, and more importantly, the Hoosiers who will be traveling in those aircraft,” Pence said.

With about 30,000 planes a year flying in and out of the airport, it’s the first point many people see of Anderson. With new development, the airport is seeing more corporate jets from companies like Nestlé, which recently moved to Anderson.

“It’s not just little airplanes anymore,” Darlington said.