Don’t be alarmed if you don’t see any Boeing 737s – or any planes for that matter – taking off from Renton Municipal Airport during the next 10 days or so.

That’s because the runway at the city-owned airport is being repaved to the tune of about $4.3 million, the bulk of which is coming from a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Five percent of the money for the project – about $219,000 – will come from revenues generated from airport operations.

The work starts at about 10 a.m. today and and will go around the clock through Aug. 9. After that, the contractor will cut grooves perpendicular to the runway. The grooves help planes brake in wet conditions.

Motorists traveling near the airport will see a steady stream of trucks carrying asphalt to the runway for the duration of the project.

The runway has taken a pounding – literally – over the last 20 years or so from the heavyweight 737s that make their maiden voyage from the Renton production plant and the thousands of much smaller planes that take off and land there every year.

And as if that wasn’t enough airport officials have detected several dips in the runway that apparently were engineered into the runway surface to allow water to “sheet off,” as airport manager Ryan Zulauf explains it.

These “perfect ellipticals” make for a “very bumpy runway,” Zulauf said.

The work comes as the City of Renton is negotiating a new long-term lease with Boeing for its facilities at the airport. The repaving is one of the city’s efforts to retain the Boeing Co. – and its thousands of employees – in Renton over the “long haul,” Zulauf said.

“We are going to give them a great runway at the end of this project,” he said.

Boeing will store the 737s – probably about 10 – at the Renton plant through Aug. 9, when the planes will take off over the next few days for Moses Lake, where they under go some final production, according to Zulauf.

The repaving has been in the discussion and planning stages for about two years. It was originally scheduled for last year. Now, the city can’t wait, because the runway could deteriorate further and require more repairs.

Although they knew the runway closure was coming, businesses dependent on the runway can’t escape the financial impact during what is their busiest time of the year.

The repaving won’t affect seaplanes or helicopters, which don’t need a runway to take off or land.

However, businesses such as Pro-Flight Aviation, which is on the far south end of the airport, will see a big drop in revenue. Many are adjusting; for example, Pro-Flight Aviation will move its flight school to Auburn Municipal Airport.

“It’s going to affect our business greatly,” said Diane O. Paholke, president of Pro-Flight Aviation, perhaps as much as 60 percent in all of the company’s business areas.

Besides the flight school, Pro-flight does maintenance work on aircraft and sells fuel.

Paholke supports the paving project. It’s just that it comes at the busiest four or five months of the year for the company, she said.

“I think we definitely need a new runway,” she said. “It’s unfortunate it’s this time of year.”

The public likely could feel the impact of the project as well, especially those who travel on Airport Way and Rainier Avenue. The trucks carrying the asphalt – about 35 an hour – will enter the airport off Airport Way and leave on the north end to Rainier Avenue. The trucks will turn south, or left, onto Rainier, using a turn pocket.

When done, the contractor, Icon, a general construction company, will have laid about 33,000 tons of asphalt. Icon is the same company that repaved Boeing Field, reopening the runway there on time, Zulauf said.

“This job will just about maximize what a really good contractor is capable of doing, given the time period,” Zulauf said.

The project begins this morning with four grinding machines methodically removing the current layer of asphalt. Rain, not heat would delay the work.

The actual paving is expected to begin this weekend.

“It’s a really interesting ballet,” Zulauf said of the grinders working in unison.

Typically, a runway is repaved every 20 years or so. The Renton runway was last repaved in about 1988.

The asphalt covers about 4,200 feet of the 5,380-foot runway. The rest is concrete. Some repairs are planned to the concrete, which lasts much longer than asphalt.

Cutting the grooves into the runway should take about two weeks. The work between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. could have some impact on flight operations, depending on timing. The schedule was also coordinated with Boeing, according to Zulauf.

Finally, the runway will get a new designation.

Now, it’s Runway 15/33. The new designation is 16/34, which reflects the subtle changes in the Earth’s magnetic north, where all compasses point. The information is important for pilots using the airport and is a change made by all airports, according to Zulauf.