Arkansas Business

Two building projects to expand and renovate parts of the South Arkansas Regional Airport in El Dorado were approved last week.

One involves the $1.6 million construction of a new hangar at the airport. Jeff Teague, chairman of the El Dorado Airport Commission, said the airport currently does not have a hangar owned by the city. “The challenge that we have is that all the hangars at the airport itself are privately owned,” he said. “So when we have requests from aircraft owners for places to hang their airplanes, we had no place to place them.”

Funding for the hangar project is coming from the Federal Aviation Administration ($600,000), the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics ($467,000) and the rest, not to exceed $850,000, from the El Dorado Economic Development Board. Last week, the Airport Commission accepted a $1.6 million bid for the project from DayCo Construction Inc. of Damascus, Teague said.

He said ground may be broken for the project by the end of the year, and it could take up to six months to complete.

The second project involves renovation of the airport’s terminal. Teague said the terminal was constructed in the 1940s and is historically significant, but is also badly in need of updated infrastructure.

Teague said that CADM Architecture Inc. of El Dorado was last week chosen to implement a $22,000 master plan to renovate the building. The work will include updated plumbing, heating and air, roof work, aesthetics and more. That project is still in its planning stage and may be phased in over several years, he said.