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Airport Master Plan To Be Unveiled This Month

Seven buildings at Majors Field, the City of Greenville Municipal Airport, will be relocated under a master plan for the airport which is to be unveiled this month.
Courtesy of City of Greenville

A master plan for the future of Majors Field, the City of Greenville Municipal Airport, is to be unveiled this month.

The plan includes the relocation of seven general aviation structures currently on city property.

City Manager Massoud Ebrahim said the proposal takes into account plans by L-3 Mission Integration to expand into almost 100 more acres on the airport grounds.

“This acreage includes the seven buildings,” Ebrahim said. “All of the buildings have to be relocated ... so that L-3 can relocate in that area.”

The buildings, which include the T-hangars and the home of the Air-Evac Lifeteam air ambulance service, would be moved south of the current location onto property which has not yet been developed.

Ebrahim said the plan has been drafted during the past 18 months and took into account that the proposed site is considered a “wet lands” area.

“We are hoping to bring the master plan before the council in two weeks,” Ebrahim said, noting once the plan is approved, the installation of “horizontal” infrastructure — such as water and sewer lines — would take place.

“And then there will be the vertical infrastructure, which is the relocation of the buildings,’ he said.

The master plan is designed to accommodate both the need to move the buildings, but also for future growth of genera aviation at the airport and the expansion of L-3.

“But the priority is to first relocate the tenants that we have,” Ebrahim explained.

The council airport sub-committee is to be briefed on the plan today, while Airport General Aviation Manager Ty Helton will be presenting the details to the city’s tenants at the airport.

In January 2014, the City of Greenville and L-3 reached agreement on a 30-year lease at the airport. The defense contractor would take over almost all of the operations at the airport, including the city’s terminal building.

L-3 had been paying $72,500 per year for its lease of 610 acres at the airport, under an agreement reached in 1977, which expired in 2017.

Under the current agreement, L-3 will be paying a total of a little more than $3 million per year to lease almost 708 acres at the airport, with the initial lease running to Sept. 30, 2016.

The primary lease would take effect the next day and run for 15 years, followed by three five-year options.

The amount of the lease would gradually increase from $3 million to just over $5 million per year during the length of the agreement.

The company would take over most of the fixed base operations at the airport and in return would receive a credit on their rental agreement. The city would still see a net of almost $26 million dollars over the length of the lease.