News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Jackson County’s hangar project stuck in a holding pattern while awaiting results from several studies, including an environmental study on nearby wetlands.
Mayor Randy Heady said the county is working to construct 10 hangars at its airport located off Big Bottom Road. He said when dealing with federal and state guidelines, there are several hoops you have to jump through in order to conduct these projects correctly.
“Go through with environmental and archaeology to get through to make sure we can actually lease the land,” Heady said. “So that’s what we’re going through to actually get our t’s crossed and our i’s dotted.”
Heady said that they hope once the environmental reviews come in they will be able to progress the project further. He said the current goal is to bid the work out in August.
Heady said the project has been around two years in the making. He said this addition will likely be the last addition for the next twenty years or so.
“That will give us the capacity that if we wanted to do fuel or a maintenance hangar in the future,” Heady said. “We would be able to do it. Right now we just don’t have the capacity of airplanes right now, we have just around 18 or 19 in the hangars and that does not justify putting a fueling station or even a maintenance hangar which is needed. So we would like to provide that for our airplane enthusiasts but we just don’t have the capacity right now.”
Heady said they expect to hear back sometime this month about the official approval from an FAA commander to move forward.
