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With roughly 90,000 takeoffs and landings per year, Aurora State Airport will finally have its first air traffic control tower.

Construction will begin this month on the $3.3 million tower at the fourth busiest airport in Oregon, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 2015, the Oregon Department of Aviation announced Wednesday.

The new tower will enhance the safety and efficiency of the airport’s take-off and landing operations, according to Mitch Swecker, director of the state aviation department.

The airport handles a mix of jets and smaller planes that operate on different communications systems. Without a tower, the common approach has been to “see and avoid” each other, Swecker said.

“When jets come in from the north, there’s a potential for them to go nose to nose,” he said. “God forbid we ever have that.”

The lottery-backed ConnectOregon III grant program in 2010 provided $2.7 million for construction of the tower. At roughly the same time, the Federal Aviation Administration gave the airport $614,000 for avionics and communications equipment, Swecker said.

Construction could not begin, though, until Aurora State Airport had completed its planning and procurement process, Swecker said.

State aviation officials toured airports in Salem, Medford, North Bend and Eugene to study other tower designs in the state. They also consulted with the FAA to make sure the tower would meet federal aviation standards, he said.

The FAA also conducted a study that took 360-degree pictures of different obstacles, including the sun and trees. The agency identified the best location for the tower using a simulator in New Jersey, he said.

The 70-foot tall tower will be located in the center of the airport’s aircraft parking area, next to Aurora Aviation.

Most neighbors’ concerns about noise and safety were addressed in the planning process, Swecker said.

With the tower in place, tower controllers will be able to reduce noise disruptions by veering planes away from noise-sensitive areas and avoid in-air collisions.

The tower could still lead to more traffic in the area as more corporate clients from Clackamas and Marion counties begin to use the airport, Swecker said.

Phoenix-based M&H Architectural & Construction Consulting completed the design work on the tower, which will be built by Tigard-based Centrex Construction, Inc.

“We’re pretty excited to finally be starting construction and having all the challenges overcome for getting construction started,” Swecker said.