ABBEVILLE, La. (KLFY) – On busy days, as many as 150 airplanes and helicopters take off from or land at Abbeville’s Chris Crusta Memorial Airport.
Abbeville Mayor mark piazza said the airport is building a new one million dollar terminal to accommodate them.
“We just want to attract more private businesses and private airplanes to our airport and the airport terminal is a big part of that,” Mayor Piazza said.
The FAA is paying for 10 percent of the project. But most of the money comes from airport earnings and oil and gas revenue.
The city broke ground on the terminal project last August. The walls of the building are now up and the structure is framed.
Crews are doing a lot of work inside the terminal building. It will be a place where pilots and passengers will be able to wait for their flights. There will be glass windows on one wall and glass double doors leading out to the tarmac.
“The terminal’s going to have a concession area, of course, it’s going to have a relaxation area, there’s going to be a flight plan room. There’s also going to be a conference room and office space,” Piazza said.
Just last week, the Abbeville City Council approved renovating the old hangar at the airport for $300,000.
“We’re going to completely insulate the inside of the hangar,” the mayor said. “It will be repainted on the outside, new roof, we’re going to repair some of the structures on the inside. It’s going to really spruce it up a lot.”
Piazza said the improvements will help Abbeville compete with other Acadiana airports.
“New Iberia, Lafayette, Jennings, they all have really nice airports, very nice terminals and we just want to stay competitive with those guys,” he said.
Airport officials hope to have the terminal ready by August.
The hangar renovations should begin in about a month or two and take about six months to complete.
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