New tower at PTI is seven years away

June 04--GREENSBORO -- The Federal Aviation Administration said it will be another seven years before Piedmont Triad International Airport gets a new tower that will help air traffic controllers better monitor the new runway.

Even so, the long-awaited project finally has gotten off the ground.

"The FAA is in the early stages of planning for a new tower at (PTI)," Kathleen Bergen, a media relations manager for the agency's Atlantic region, said in an email. "The earliest we could commission a new tower is 2019."

Beyond that, the FAA said it has not developed a detailed timeline for the estimated $27 million tower and could not provide specifics on when construction might begin.

Airport officials hope the work begins sooner rather than later.

"We would hope that (2019 ) would be an outside date and that the tower would be up and running long before that," said Henry Isaacson, chairman of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority. "We will do everything we can to expedite its construction."

A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said his organization had no additional details about the status of the tower.

Airport officials and air traffic controllers have long complained about the limitations of the existing 88-foot tower, especially since the airport opened its 9,000-foot, parallel runway in 2010.

Airport officials have cleared trees and installed cameras to help controllers see partially blocked parts of the new runway and its taxiways, but all agree that's not the best solution.

Sen. Kay Hagan, who has called the tower's safety hazards "extremely concerning," worked last year with Rep. Howard Coble to encourage the FAA to begin planning the PTI project.

Hagan's office said that after Hagan met with federal aviation representatives and airport officials in March 2011, the FAA put PTI on a list of towers eligible for federal funding.

In an email, Hagan's office said the Greensboro Democrat wants to see the project move forward "as quickly as possible."

So far, the FAA has conducted an initial study of potential sites for the tower but has not made a final selection.

Hagan's office said that process should be finished next year and a design contract awarded in 2014.

Airport officials also said they have just received a draft of the FAA's environmental assessment of the project.

"It doesn't move at lightning speed," Isaacson said of the building process. "(But) it is moving in the right direction."

Isaacson said the new tower will stand approximately 210 feet high and have a much larger cab, or working area, for air traffic controllers.

Airport officials said they have been talking about a new tower for a decade or more.

"It never got any traction at all," Kevin Baker, the airport's executive director, said of the plan. "(But) over the last year or so, we're moving. There's a higher interest level in this project than there used to be."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or [email protected]

Copyright 2012 - News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.