An architect was hired Friday to begin designing an expanded fire station located at the Vicksburg Municipal Airport, which has to be under construction by September if the city is to receive a $1.3 million grant for the project.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a contract with Dale and Associates architects of Jackson for $77,767 for the design work. Vicksburg and Warren County received approximately $5.2 million in community block grants from the Mississippi Development Authority following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — including $1.3 million to expand the station at the airport on U.S. 61 South and build a new terminal.

The city decided to remodel the terminal after estimates for building a new facility came in too high, and it is doing the work in-house in hopes of counting the costs toward the 50 percent local match required of the grant.

The Vicksburg Fire Department started staffing its flood-prone outpost — located about 100 yards from the airport terminal — in an existing building when the last municipal annexation became effective in 1990. Fire department officials have said a larger facility will help it better serve south Vicksburg, and recommended it include at least three new bays to park one ambulance and two fire trucks.

Fire Chief Keith Rogers has said the station would need to house at least 12 firefighters with such an expansion. Three people per shift are currently stationed in the existing building. The last fire facility built in the city was Memorial Station on Indiana Avenue. It was constructed following the 1990 annexation.

The fire station renovation is one of many ongoing projects at the airport. The city has taken a renewed interest in the airport over the past year under Mayor Laurence Leyens, making it a department of the city in late October. An in-house remodeling of the nearly 60-year-old terminal has been under way since last fall, paid for in part through the $1.3 million post-Katrina grant. A manufactured home has been serving as a temporary terminal while the renovations are being completed.

In April, the city signed a contract with Brumfield & Associates Architecture to design a new T-hangar for the airport, which airport manager Curt Follmer said could house 10 to 16 airplanes. Leyens has said the T-hangar will cost about $300,000.

Both the T-hangar project and the fire station need to be bid out and have dirt work begin by September in order to receive grant money, and Follmer said both should meet the deadline.  

Meanwhile, New Orleans-based GCR & Associates Inc. is being paid $12,500 to identify trees that will need to be removed in the glide slope of the 5,000-foot runway. The work is the first step in a larger plan to acquire a 19-acre tract on the north side of the runway and clear it of trees and brush, as well as install Federal Aviation Administration-approved fencing.

The airport received a $262,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority for the work last year, and the cost of the survey work will go toward the city’s required match of the grant dollars.

A 20-year airport layout plan was recently completed by Jackson-based consultant Neel-Schaffer, which includes the addition of a new runway capable of handing commercial air traffic, plus other ambitious expansions. Leyens has also been working to bring a private, $60 million defense technology testing facility to Vicksburg, which would be based at the airport.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com