James March-April 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 78
other similar-sized aircraft. You need
at least 5,000 feet on a runway— approximately a mile— to make it viable
for the kind of corporate jet traffic or
similar-sized aircraft that is going to
bring that economic development.
Griffin-Spalding has been working for
years to get a replacement airport and
are nearing completion on the required
land they need.
Croy Engineering is helping them
get there. “We expect to be under construction on building that new airport
probably in the next two, two and a
half years,” said Teague.
Former Southern Crescent Technical College President Randall Peters is
now the chair of the Griffin-Spalding
Airport Authority, and is leading the
efforts to get the new, regional airport
built. “The decision was made probably as early as 2004, that it was not going to be economical to try to extend
the existing airport. So they started
looking around for airport site selection in about 2008,” says Peters. “In
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REID SVILLE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
2012, they formed an airport authority
that was set aside for the purpose of
governance of the existing airport,
but also to oversee the construction
of a new one based on agreements
with GDOT and the Federal Aviation
Administration, the city of Griffin, Spalding County and others.”
The community is now 20 years in
on the airport construction project and
shovels are not quite in the ground yet.
“A lot of the holdup was financial,”
notes Peters. “When we started this,
the estimate to build the new regional
airport was about $60 to $70 million.
And of course, if you’ve tried to buy a
sheet of plywood lately, you know how
those prices have skyrocketed and the
current estimated cost runs around
$121 million, about double.”
The 3,400-foot-long runway is
mostly propeller driven aircraft, a few
