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Wednesday, December 26, 2007 Airport completes trio of major
expansions
By Mary Carr Mayle The Savannah (GA) Morning
News The airport expansion
includes a new passenger retail area dubbed Hilton Head
Isle. For the better part of
2007, the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport looked as much like a
construction zone as an airport, with no fewer than three major expansion
projects under way at the same time. All that controlled chaos has finally come to
fruition. The expanded terminal opened in July, the new
operations center came online in September and the last of the projects - a
much-anticipated parking garage - opened in October. "It's been a busy year with so much
going on at once, but we set up a construction management team to help address
all the issues and that helped tremendously," said Patrick Graham, airport
executive director. "We're very pleased with the way
everything turned out." The $14.2 million terminal expansion, which
added five new gates and 10,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space to
the 10-gate terminal built in 1994, is designed to accommodate area growth as
well as the larger regional jets that are beginning to fly into Savannah. About 84 flights - carrying approximately
5,800 passengers - take off or arrive every day at Savannah/Hilton Head. The airport passed the 1 million mark in both
boardings and arrivals for the first time in 2005, then missed it by a fraction
of a percent last year as financially strapped airlines cut flights and
downsized planes nationwide. But the passenger demand has always been
there, Graham said. Now, as airlines have begun to add new
services and equipment - and the airport is solidly on track to surpass the 1
million mark again in 2007 - the new gates allow Savannah to cater to that
demand, said Robert Uhrich, director of air services development for the
airport. "It couldn't have come at a better
time," Uhrich said. "We were running out of available gate space and
it's tough to woo new airlines when you can't promise to accommodate their
needs." Barely six weeks after completing the
terminal expansion, the airport opened a new operations center designed to
consolidate departments previously spread out across airport property. The 24,000-square-foot, $5 million Airport
Operations Center, built with airport general fund money, now houses the
purchasing, grounds and building maintenance departments as well as a vehicle
maintenance facility. In addition to streamlining repairs and other
operations, the new center also serves as a hurricane shelter for airport
staff. Designed to withstand sustained winds of up to 130 miles per hour and
operate for up to 10 days without commercial power, it will allow the airport
to continue operating during a hurricane or other emergency. Perhaps the most anticipated improvement of
the year was the new parking garage, which opened to the public in mid-October. The $35 million garage added 1,690 spaces,
taking the airport's total parking inventory to 3,690. Located directly across from the terminal,
the covered garage features a unique Signal Park system that informs drivers of
the number of available spaces on each of its four levels and the number of
empty spaces in each row. "It's easy in and easy out and no one has
to ride around looking for a parking space," Graham said. That's especially appreciated this time of
year, said airport commissioner Steve Green. "The covered parking is a huge
convenience and Signal Park will make it safer as rushed passengers hurry to
find a parking space," he said. The completion of all three expansion
projects is a boon to travelers in the two-state area, said Bill Miles,
president of the Hilton Head/Bluffton Chamber of Commerce. "The entire region benefits when you
have an airport that has the vision to expand and produce the level of service
today's flying consumer has come to expect," he said. "The added gates and additional covered
parking are great improvements." WHAT HAPPENED Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport
completed a trio of major improvement projects in 2007, including a terminal
expansion that added five more gates and a new parking garage that added nearly
1,700 covered spaces. The airport also built a new operations center designed
to withstand hurricane-force winds. WHAT IT MEANS The improvements, designed to accommodate up
to 3 million total passengers a year, will allow the airport to accommodate
expected area growth for at least the next five years while effectively
competing for new airlines and services. WHAT'S NEXT While projects such as extending a taxiway
and adding 500 feet to an existing runway are already on tap for the next year
or so, growth strategies are in place far beyond that, said airport Executive
Director Patrick Graham. "Right now, we're at just over a million
boardings a year," he said. "When we need to, we can extend the terminal
to the east." Graham said he expects the airport to start
experiencing growing pains again in about seven years. When that happens,
Savannah/Hilton Head will be ready. "We're planned out all the way to 5
million boardings," he said. |
