Officials in Jefferson County are moving forward with plans to revamp the county's airport.

Commissioner Tom Gentile said the county and state will pay for the $2 million project. The state is providing $1.5 million and Jefferson County has agreed to put $500,000 into the deal.

"We needed the runway expanded to 5,000 feet and widened, and the state agreed," Gentile said.

He said leaders hope the improvements will lead to economic growth. For example, each plane diverted into the county's airport during the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh in 2009 because of airspace restrictions had to meet certain size requirements.

But soon, officials said those smaller airplanes will be joined by larger ones.

"There's all this much more of a reason for companies to locate to Jefferson County if you're looking at corporate headquarters of some of these companies to be coming in and out for the oil and gas. It just makes us that much more attractive because this will be the airport (from which) they'll be coming in and out. The governor, for example, last week had to fly into West Virginia to come here into Jefferson County and when we get this done, he'll be able to fly into Jefferson County," he said.

He said county officials hope to selection an engineer over the winter and the project should begin sometime in the spring.

The runway improvements will be made as finishing touches are put on the apron and hangar areas that were destroyed by storms a few years ago. That $500,000 project only cost the county $46,000 and the rest was paid for by insurance money and federal funding.