Feb. 25—LAURINBURG — The Southeast Regional Airport Authority met Thursday afternoon at the airport for its monthly meeting, and the building they were sitting in was the major topic of discussion.
The Laurinburg/Maxton Airport could be the centerpiece in the community and the airport authority wants to make some serious upgrades to the current terminal.
Gary Beal with C-Designs presented conceptual options of what the new terminal could look like as a one-story or two-story building.
This is part of a space allocation study that the airport commissioned and is paid for by the airport improvement program. At Thursday's meeting, Beal showed the board what each building could look like.
The main purpose of the presentation was to decide how many square feet the new building would need.
Beal said after meeting with the subcommittees about the airport redesign, the new building would be about 6,000 square feet to meet the needs of the airport, including conference rooms and space for fixed base operators.
Beal said they looked at the history of the airport to help with the design. For the single-story building, he said they looked at the wings of the glider and the quick stick-built buildings of the former military base that used to be on the airport's land to create the conception.
"The plan that we came with for the private/public use, we have the authority area, a public area and the FBO, pilot area, a more secure area. There are secure points on either side, keeping people out of that area," he said. Beal showed how the glider wings, would allow natural light to come in and would give the authority more natural light in the building.
Next, Beal went over what a two-story building would look like and how having that type of building could benefit the airport by having a small footprint and allowing more room for expansion. But there would need to be additional square footage added on the inside of the building for stairs and an elevator.
And the estimated cost of each square foot is $300.
"You start adding 600 square feet and that's something that has to be planned in," he said.
The report was presented as information so that the authority can decide what the new terminal building will look like, a final decision is yet to be made.
In other business, the authority received the results of its audit. The only problem that was found, according to auditor Ken Anderson was that it was late.
Cheris Hodges can be reached at [email protected].
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