Terminal Flaw

SF Municipal Airport redesign takes flight without public sendoff

Ire is beginning to gather around proposed renovations of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport and an apparent lack of public input on the process of redesigning the small city-owned building that serves as its terminal.

"It's a wonderful old airport that we need to lovingly take care of," says Carolyn Cook, a private pilot and Santa Fe resident of 25 years and, until recently, a member of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport Advisory Board.

"I resigned in May after this meeting because I just felt…we can do better with a very important economic engine for the city," Cook says. "There were no plans where you have more space. All they're doing is moving walls to accommodate more people, and to me, we can do better."

The Airport Advisory Board this spring saw just one presentation of the schematic design plan, prepared by architects Molzen Corbin, which also worked on the 2004 renovations at the airport. The Public Works Committee and Finance Committee also saw a schematic design during meetings in May and June, plus the group made a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce.

But then, fast-track approval apparently led the city to lock in the design in order to spend nearly a million dollars of state funds with little opportunity for public review. An "informational" item on the City Council consent agenda for July 8 is presented as a preapproved, single-option plan that is intended to resolve the squeeze at the airport and address needs for the Transportation Security Administration.

City Council wasn't involved in the schematic design, Cook says, out of concerns over slowing the process down. She adds that another advisory board member said a large grant received from the state late last year needed to be spent quickly. Cook says she later learned that the grant is good for three years, as long as the city could show progress on the project.

City resident Frank Nichols convened his own meeting on the topic on July 6, when the graphic designer, who has attended the previous six months of Airport Advisory Board meetings, met with about 25 others at the downtown library, many of whom voiced concerns about the renovation plan.

The airport was built in classic pueblo revival style and opened for business in 1956. Nichols says that since then, it's been eroded by additions that fail to mesh with the original structure.

"I think this building is a treasure," Nichols says. "The gradual chiseling away of the architectural details of this building is really sad, and eventually they'll get to the point where they'll say, there's not much left to save, and they'll tear it down."

But there's no doubt a need for reorganizing the flow of people through the airport and a need to increase the capacity for the secure waiting room. At present, the waiting area holds 50 people, enough passengers for just one plane. If a flight is delayed and two planes stack up, passengers who are already cleared through security are sometimes asked to exit the area to wait out the delay, and then they have to undergo screening again. Those 50-seat planes are also on the cusp of being retired as inefficient and will be replaced with 70-seat planes, according to the Centre for Aviation, an industry organization.

Even without delays, the area can go from empty to hectic quickly, and it is likely to get worse, as Cook reports that the airport served 140,000 passengers in the last year, an increase over recent years.

The current building features one entryway to access ticketing and the TSA screening area as well as baggage claim, and all rely on one set of restrooms. The restaurant is accessible only to those outside the secured area.

"As soon as you step into the entry, if not the airport itself, you've stepped into two or three different traffic patterns," Nichols says. "It's not a great experience."

The proposed remodel expands the secure waiting room, creates access to restaurant service on either side and adds a restroom in the post-security waiting area. Yet the path for arriving passengers crosses the route for baggage carts, and the main lobby will be even smaller than it is now. Traffic patterns, particularly to and from restrooms, may still cross one another.

Nichols himself has tinkered with a redesign; he says he's sure there's a better way to move people through the building.

Consensus among attendees at the Monday evening meeting was that they wanted to see the airport continue to look and feel like Santa Fe, instead of looking like Everywhere, USA. There was even talk of pursuing historic designation for the building.

"The problem is, there are certain things functionally that really need to be done. The question is how to do that," says Marilyn Bane, president of the Historic Neighborhood Association, vice president of the Santa Fe Neighborhood Network and an executive committee member of the Old Santa Fe Association. "How do you do that and maintain the character?"

Nichols says he's also spoken with the mayor and city councilors about the project.

"Most of them agree with me that there are problems with the existing plan, but there doesn't seem to be a will or an agenda to do anything about it," he says.

Separate from the terminal renovations, the airport is also slated to get a new driveway from the south when a private developer connects Jaguar Drive over NM 599.

According to a memo from the city Transportation Department Director Jon Bulthuis, a request for bid is set to go out in September for the terminal renovation, and construction is estimated to be completed by April 2016.

UPDATE: The City Council told Bulthuis on July 8 to hold a public hearing at the airport about the plan in the near future.

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