preview plans for airport

PANAMA CITY

Airport officials gave Florida State engineering students and members of the public a view of what it is like to build one of the largest projects in Bay County history.

The $330 million airport will be built on 4,000 acres of St. Joe-donated land in West Bay. Construction on the new Panama City-Bay County International Airport is slated to begin later this year.

Randy Curtis, the executive director of the Airport Authority, gave an update on the project, while Darin Larson, a division manager with PBS&J, and Jeff Dealy, a construction manager with KBR, talked about engineering and construction issues.

“This project has been somewhat controversial,” Curtis told the nearly full crowd at the FSU-PC auditorium Tuesday afternoon.

Airport officials have obtained all the needed permits and awarded the first phase of construction to Phoenix Construction Inc. Airport officials still have to get their financing in place and finalize the $99 million sale of the current airport property, Curtis said.

The plans for the new site call for the airport to be built on 1,300 acres, Curtis said. The rest of the 4,000-acre site will allow for expansion. Given the plans, airport officials expect extensive expansion.

The drawings call for two parallel runways that will allow for simultaneous takeoffs and landings. The primary runway will be 8,400 feet long but will have room to expand to 12,000 feet, Larson said.

Engineers also had to discern how to build to FAA standards in a wet environment. More than half of the site is wetlands, Larson said. The site has more than 800,000 cubic yards of “muck” that will have to be dealt with, and the FAA requires retention ponds that drain in about two days. Standing water could attract birds, something the FAA does not want.

“It is a delicate balance,” Larson said, adding that engineers had to come up with solutions that meet environmental concerns and pass muster with local officials.