Wichita Eagle
By Molly McMillin
When passengers enter the city’s new terminal at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport — expected to open in 2012 — they will know they’ve arrived at the Air Capital of the World, planners say.
The terminal will showcase Wichita’s history and its legacy of aviation pioneering and ongoing innovation.
“There will be no mistaking that we are in fact reinforcing the long claim that Wichita” is the Air Capital, said airport director Victor White. “It’s the place where more airplanes have been built than any other place on the planet.”
Visitors will walk in to see a modern architectural design and enlarged ticketing and baggage claim areas on the main level.
An upper concourse will feature waiting areas, concessions and an enlarged passenger security screening. It also will include 10 boarding gates.
The City Council will meet later this summer to review the financial plan for the terminal project prior to awarding construction bids. Bids for construction of the terminal itself will be issued in late summer and awarded sometime in the fall.
A second phase of construction will begin this month on the aprons where aircraft will be parked. Work on installing pipes for the site’s utilities and demolition of the former air cargo and maintenance buildings also will begin this summer, White said.
The $150 million terminal will be located immediately west of the existing one, which will eventually be torn down.
It will be paid for through passenger fees, facility charges, airport revenues, rents, landing fees, and from Federal Aviation Administration and Homeland Security grants.
Wichita’s link to aviation will be showcased in the design of the building itself –in its swooped roof resembling a wing in flight, ceilings reminiscent of an aircraft cabin headliner, skylights, lots of glass and sidewalk canopies.
The city’s rich history will be on display through special exhibits that will be an integral part of the terminal’s design. Wichita’s Greteman Group is the project consultant for the exhibits.
“We want people to say, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea Wichita had all that here or made all that,’ ” said Greteman Group vice president Deanna Harms. “We want it to be a jaw-dropping experience.”
They’ve interviewed and worked with manufacturers, historians and aviation buffs for the past three years.
The panels of the exhibits will be wing-shaped with metal leading edges and painted in the colors of an aircraft in construction. It’s a subtle thing, Harms said.
“The lay person will think the colors look fresh and vibrant, but anyone who’s ever worked in an aircraft factory will know those colors,” she said.
Each panel will highlight a segment of Wichita’s history and the people who made it happen through photos, videos and text.
The panels will showcase the early years of aviation, the Barnstormers of the 1910s ’20s, manufacturers such as the Laird Co. and Travel Air, the city’s efforts in World War II building B-29s, and Stearman and Boeing, Cessna Aircraft, Hawker Beechcraft, Bombardier Learjet and Kansas aviation legends along with other elements.
The new terminal will be Wichita’s third. The first one was built in the 1930s. It is home to the Kansas Aviation Museum. The opening of McConnell Air Force Base forced the terminal to be relocated to its current site, which opened in 1954.
An analysis completed in 2003 showed that rehabilitating and renovating the current terminal would cost as much as constructing a new building. And it would still be a 60-year-old facility by the time it was completed.
The terminal is Wichita’s front door.
“We are the Air Capital,” said Sonia Greteman, president of the Greteman Group. “It’s about time we act like it and show it to the world.”
© The Wichita Eagle, 2009
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