Airport expansion project clears hurdle

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2001 | 9:43 a.m.

As visitors to the Henderson Executive Airport drive the last approach of a narrow road flanked by utility poles -- potential flying hazards you don't see at most airports -- they pass a sign that reads: "Warning. Yield to Aircraft."

The general aviation airport of mostly small planes is a hodgepodge of trailered offices and ramshackle tin hangars plunked down around a 1940s air traffic control tower salvaged from Nellis Air Force Base in 1974.

Planes and cars sometimes pilot the same roadways, and inside the main terminal for Grand Canyon flight tours, gift store employees sit at metal card tables gluing beads onto Southwestern-style handkerchiefs.

If the 420-acre airport seems on the whole resourcefully modest, the $13 million expansion plan the Clark County Department of Aviation has for it is outright ambitious.

The county says it is going to remake the airport as a first-class general aviation reliever airport that will serve as a landmark "gateway" to southwest Henderson, which borders Interstate 15.

On Tuesday, the Henderson City Council approved the county's plans, removing one of the last hurdles to a project that has been delayed for more than two years by difficulties obtaining a 140-acre lease from the Bureau of Land Management and a lingering legal challenge by residential neighbors of nearby Seven Hills.

Mayor Jim Gibson said the airport expansion will be integral to defining the shape of industrial development within the 6,200 acres annexed by the city in July 2000. The 6,200 acres are southwest of St. Rose Parkway between the airport and Interstate 15.

"The bottom line is that the city isn't going to make decisions as to the gateway itself," Gibson said. "But we will take into account what private development is proposed and we'll make sure it's better than if we didn't have the foresight to plan for it in advance."

As a new transportation hub for corporate jets, the airport should attract more industry to the area, Tom Donaldson, manager of the airport, said.

The initial airport expansion will require tearing up the existing 5,040-foot runway and building two new runways canted slightly away from residential neighborhoods to reduce noise. One runway will be built to the same 5,040-foot length. A second runway will be built to 6,500 feet, opening the airport to corporate jets. It will not, however, open the airport to carrier jets such as 737s.

After building new runways, the county plans to raze everything on the site site except for one hangar built in the last couple years.

In its place, the county will build a new expanded main terminal, traffic control tower, shade hangars, repair shops and a restaurant. The county has also secured permits for a hotel, day care facility and a park among other amenities, but Donaldson said those developments, if pursued, would be several years off.

The county bought the private airport, then known as Sky Harbor Airport, in 1996. County aviation officials also run a similar general aviation airport in North Las Vegas, which the county has already upgraded.

The county plans to use both facilities as reliever airports to divert slower, smaller planes from McCarran International Airport. That will allow McCarran to land more planes, serving a projected maximum annual passenger capacity of 55 million by 2007.

The Henderson airport is expected to double its 77,000 take-offs and landings in the next decade, coordinating more than 150,000 operations by 2011.