14-Gate Myrtle Beach Airport Terminal Receding

The 14-gate terminal that Horry County Council proposed two years ago for the west side of Myrtle Beach International Airport is receding into the mists of the future. For reasons that many observers have never been able to fathom, the project is becoming more abstract with the passage of time, not less.

As the council learned this week, the cost estimate for the terminal project is now $228.8 million - despite the best efforts of the council and the airport leadership to cap costs at $200 million. As if that weren't bad enough, council Chairwoman Liz Gilland has fired the HNTB Architecture Inc. as terminal architect because its principals refused to perform their contract for the agreed-upon price. That was a good move, given HNTB's passive-aggressive refusal to move ahead with design work after the county spurned its demand for more money. But the firing sets design work back for at least a year, maybe longer.

To cap it all off, after two years of grubbing for money to pay for the project, the county has cobbled together only about $45 million in actual cash to put toward the terminal. The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to indicate whether it will participate in the financing. Any remaining gap would have to be covered with borrowed money, placing longtime pressure on airport revenues.

Why and how did the terminal project go so badly awry? That's not clear but should become so as a result of the council's decision Tuesday to pony up $105,000 to pay for a long-delayed management study of the county's Airport Department.

The primary purpose of the study will gauge the quality of the airport management under County Administrator Danny Knight and Airports Director Bob Kemp, with advice and political interference-running from the members of the county's Airport Advisory Committee. Some Kemp supporters see the study as an attempt to "get" him by three council members, Howard Barnard, Mark Lazarus and Marion Foxworth, who have made no secret of their belief that the Airport Department and Myrtle Beach airport could be better run.

But if the study is honest - we believe it will be - the consultant well might pronounce Kemp the fine manager that his supporters say he is, instead recommending changes in the way the council oversees the Airport Department. Or maybe the consultant will find airport management to be fine as is, though that seems unlikely.

Management structure drives functioning in any organization, the county included. So in laying out what's wrong and what's right about airport management, the study should provide county residents with insights into how the terminal project got so badly off track and whether it can - or should - be rescued. They will be most welcome.

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