The Chamberlain airport will replace its current terminal with the help of federal grant dollars.
The $855,000 grant comes from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Mike Lauritsen is the Lake Francis Case Development director. He said the new space is much needed.
“The current airport terminal building is an addition onto an existing building that was there, and it’s fairly small – it’s very aged,” Lauritsen said.
The airport does not serve passengers, and instead serves crop dusters, air ambulances and hobbyist aircraft. The new facility was designed with Chamberlain’s status as a regional health hub in mind.
“The hospital flies out someone almost every other day – they have 14 flights a month," Lauritsen said. "So, the existing building, when they’re staging for patients, they have to go down four steps before they can load somebody on the plane. The new facility will not have steps. We had the building designed with in mind the hospital would be staging their critical care patients there.”
Construction on the new terminal is scheduled to begin next month, to be completed by the end of the year.
