Aug. 30--ALBANY -- With the construction of the new terminal at Albany's Southwest Georgia Regional Airport nearly complete, airport officials can turn their attention to other future plans including potential hanger and fixed based operator renovations.
Airport Director Yvette Aehle said that the terminal project, which has been under way for roughly five years, was nearing completion and would be completely finished by early 2015, now that the old terminal building had finally been torn down. She recently outlined those plans to members of the Dougherty County Rotary Club.
"It has taken us five years to implement," said Aehle. "It has taken a lot of cooperation between the city, the state and the Federal Aviation Administration to get all the money lined up so we could build a new terminal as well."
Aehle said that currently work is being done to lay sanitary and storm sewer in the area where the old terminal stood. After that there are plans to build a new car rental return line, re-configure short and long-term parking and expand the air carrier parking apron.
"Behind our terminal building we're beginning another part of phase three which is to expand the air carrier parking apron," Aehle said. "All of this is due to be done in February of 2015 and then we can declare victory."
With completion of those projects on the immediate horizon, Aehle said she has turned her focus to the next large project facing the airport, which in her mind is the renovation of the hanger and FBO areas, things she feels will take a lot of planning and work.
According to Aehle, the hangers and FBO, which service the airport's private aircraft owners, have been in need of renovation for some time.
"There's other stuff that needs to be done, said Aehle. "We have a beautiful, new $10.8 million building that's stuck in between two large old World War II hangers, terrible. Unfortunately the way the federal regulations read they do not participate at all in hanger demolition or construction. They don't participate in fixed based operator (FBO) where our executive aircraft fly into. They don't participate in that stuff at all. So therefore airports like us have to rely on local and state funding for this."
Aehle said she has already been in discussion with state officials to secure future funding for the projects. What she envisions is a new FBO and hangers that mirror the new terminal in terms of aesthetics.
"There's four hanger buildings that need to be brought down and we also want to build a new fixed based operator facility that looks kind of like our new terminal building," she said. "I don't want it to look vastly different. I want it to look like if you go into the executive terminal, you go into our commercial terminal, they look the same. It's going to take a lot longer for us to do this rather than what we did with the terminal. It took us five years to get from the start to the finish. I see this taking at least five years."
Aehle stressed that planned renovations to the hangers and FBO are still in infancy, but that it was important to begin thinking about these things now because it would take considerable time to plan the projects and secure funding.
Much like the terminal the new project would likely require proceeds from another Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, as well as help from the state. Aehle said the project would likely have to be done in small increments across long period of time where things like new hangers could be built while the current hangers were still operational.
"It's not going to happen overnight," Aehle said. "We're not going to do it all in one fell swoop, as much as I'd like to do that. Design could take several years, but the point is we're starting to think about it. I'm not going to leave our private aircraft owners in the dark because they have put up with substandard facilities for a very long time and now it's time to develop that."
Copyright 2014 - The Albany Herald, Ga.
