Conway set to open new airport

Old one to be used for fueling for a few months, then close

Danny Lindler works a backhoe recently under the direction of Aaron Gomez as they search for electrical lines at the new airport in Conway.
Danny Lindler works a backhoe recently under the direction of Aaron Gomez as they search for electrical lines at the new airport in Conway.

CONWAY -- Come daylight Monday, Conway airport will have two airports, but only temporarily.

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A map showing the Conway Municipal Airport and the site of the new municipal airport.

A newly built, $35 million airport in the Lollie Bottoms area near the Arkansas River on the western edge of Conway will begin allowing plane landings and takeoffs on Labor Day. Because the airport's fuel system and most of its hangars aren't ready yet, the city's old airport in downtown Conway will remain open for at least a couple of months, said Airport Manager Josh Zylks.

"Should people fly in for the day and we don't have fuel, they're more than welcome to ... hop over" to the old airport for fuel, Zylks said.

Because of safety issues at the old facility, the Federal Aviation Administration wanted the city to go ahead and open the new airport so pilots would at least have a choice of airports until the new one is fully operational, Zylks said.

The FAA has long considered the current pre-World War II Conway airport unsafe. It is adjacent to Interstate 40 and along Sixth Street in Conway, just yards from residential neighborhoods and near Conway Commons, the city's busiest shopping center.

Mayor Tab Townsell said the first study recommending that the city relocate the airport came out in 1975.

Three people have died as a result of two crashes at or near the current airport since the city began moving toward building a larger and safer one in the less-densely populated Lollie Bottoms area. Two of the victims were pilots; the third was a woman in her home across the street from the runway.

The Mississippi pilot who died in the 2012 crash would have had "a lot more choices" on where to land at the new site than he had at the old site, where his plane's engine failed after takeoff, Townsell said at the time.

"There are no obstructions around the [new] airport like there are at the current one," Zylks said.

The roughly 12,000-foot-long runway at the new airport is longer, wider and safer than the current one, which extended 5,500 feet, Zylks said. Beyond the 12,000 feet of runway, he said, there's even more unobstructed land.

"So, it's a clear and open departure," he said.

The new airport -- financed with state, federal and local funds -- also can handle heavier planes and jets, those weighing up to about 100,000 pounds, he said. That's up from about 25,000 pounds at the old airport.

The new one "could handle any business jets from the weight standpoint and the runway standpoint," Zylks said. "It's going to be significantly stronger and be able to hold more."

Zylks wasn't sure how many planes tend to fly in and out of the old Dennis F. Cantrell Field but said, "There are days when you'll have half a dozen airplanes."

Because many people take flight lessons there, he said, there might be 70 or 80 takeoffs and landings in a single day by a single plane or just a few.

He noted, though, that Southwest Energy is among the area businesses that rely on air service in Conway.

The airport does not, however, provide service to charter planes because of security regulations, Zylks said. Those planes have to go through the larger Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, Adams Field, in Little Rock.

The nearest fire station to the new airport, to be called Cantrell Field, is off West Prince Street, 6.7 miles from the new site, Zylks said.

Getting a station closer is "a realistic hope," he said, but added, "I don't see it coming up in the near future. I would certainly like to see something closer."

Officials don't know the exact date they'll close the old airport. But plans already call for the land to be turned into a large shopping center with Dillard's anchoring it. The center is to be called Central Landing.

Townsell said developers hope to open the shopping center in the fall of 2016 in time for Christmas. But if they miss that target, "they may actually just drift back into the middle of 2017," he said.

Townsell called the new airport a major "community accomplishment ... a group effort."

He specifically credited Conway residents Bill Hegeman and Bill Adkisson, who have long been involved in the effort and who serve on the city's airport advisory committee.

Townsell said the new airport will offer visitors a positive first look at the city.

Things such as this are "how some people see us, how they get to know us first," he said. "It's an access to our city; it's a gateway; it's a portal. This isn't just a park and playground for the wealthy. ... It works to our economic advantage."

State Desk on 08/31/2014

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