Tri-Cities Regional Improvement Projects Continue

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Construction and destruction are two themes that have surrounded the Tri-Cities Regional Airport recently as it undergoes two major construction projects worth a combined $6.9 million.

This month, construction crews have been busy tearing down the north side of the airport’s old gate concourse building, which sits between the facility’s restaurant and runway.

Milton Lietzke, the airport’s engineering services manager, said this building dates back to the late 1960s and was used by the airport’s passengers until the facility’s new gate concourse building opened in September 2001.

Contractors started preparing the concourse building on Sept. 9 by removing its wiring, asbestos and glass walls, Lietzke said. They tore down the concourse building’s roof and concrete structural beams on Thursday.

Lietzke said the demolition was part of a $4 million project to expand the terminal ramp – where planes load and unload passengers – and replace its asphalt surface with concrete.

“The current asphalt is in excess of 20 years old and is starting to break down, so we’re taking that out,” Airport Executive Director Patrick Wilson said Friday.

The expanded terminal ramp, Wilson said, will give planes more space to maneuver as they load their passengers and will allow them to get closer to the terminal.

This is the second phase of the airport’s terminal ramp project. The first phase started in October 2007, when construction crews replaced a portion of the terminal ramp directly in front of the airport’s observation deck.

When the second phase is finished, Lietzke said, contractors will have poured more than 200,000 square yards of concrete that in some places will be 14 inches thick.

Lietzke and Wilson said the airport will start tearing down the south side of its old concourse building as part of the terminal ramp project’s third phase, though neither could provide an exact date of when that work will start.

This month, crews also started working on a construction project at the south end of the airport’s runway that is opposite the terminal building.

Lietzke said this project involves leveling out space large enough for a 14,400-square-foot hangar, building an access road to the hangar and constructing a new taxiway connecting the hangar to the airport’s main runway.

Wilson said the new taxiway and access road also will service a series of 11 corporate hangars the airport plans to build at the south side of its runway in the coming years.

King Pharmaceuticals, the United Co., Eastman Chemical Co., and AFG Industries currently lease private hangars from the airport.

Wilson said that while he does not have a tenant for the new hangar, “there had been some interest in it.”

Wilson said state and federal grants are paying for more than 90 percent of the costs associated with both projects. The grant money comes from a series of aviation user fees such as taxes on airplane fuel, and not from taxpayer dollars, he added.

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