Westmoreland airport officials seek to double size of Arnold Palmer terminal

The Westmoreland County Airport Authority will begin formalizing plans in May to more than double the size of the terminal building at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity, officials said Tuesday.

The two-story terminal building was dedicated in 1977 and was refurbished in 1998 to accommodate just 60 commercial passengers, according to airport executive director Gabe Monzo.

But with Spirit Airlines providing multiple commercial flights from the 45,000-square-foot building, two flights are sometimes handled simultaneously, resulting in cramped accommodations for almost 400 passengers, authority member Don Rossi said.

“You’re talking about 400 people standing in this building either coming off one flight and others possibly waiting to depart on another … it’s too much. We can’t put it off any longer. We’ve got to do (the expansion) now if we ever want to attract another airline in here,” Rossi said.

Scott Kunselman, the airport’s engineer from McFarland Johnson of Dubois, said the new design needs to take into account security needs and covid-19 protocols.

The terminal now has one Transportation Security Administration screening gate, and passengers sometimes are waiting as far back as the terminal building entrance to be processed.

“We’d like to see at least two gates here,” Kunselman said.

With social distancing requirements, there needs to be expanded space for passengers to wait for flights, he said.

“When we get two flights in here at the same time, we can strain and handle it. But we’d like to be able to handle two flights at a time comfortably, and possibly three flights,” Kunselman said.

Airport grants director Dwayne Pickels noted the airport’s old master plan called for 14,000-square-foot expansions on both the first and second floors.

Kunselman told authority members the 2017 master plan could be “used as a starting point” to add ideas. The expansion likely would occur on the northeast side of the terminal building, necessitating the removal of a storage building there and the existing, stand-alone air traffic control tower that was dedicated in 1981, he said.

Some ideas include constructing a flight control tower with a third floor that controllers could access using an elevator; adding a small casino room where passengers could play games of chance as they wait for upcoming flights; and adding room for another restaurant, Rossi said.

Authority officials said former expansion plans carried a price tag of approximately $22 million, but the new design has yet to be formalized. In March, the authority said it had about $14 million in funding commitments.

The authority intends to continue pursuing federal, state and local funding sources for the project, Pickels said.

The authority has asked county commissioners for $7 million of the $105 million in American Rescue Act funds the county has received, but commissioners haven’t finalized a plan to allocate that federal covid-relief money.

If the planning goes well and funding becomes available, the project could be bid in the spring of 2023 and construction could begin that fall, Kunselman said.

The authority intends to begin planning for the new terminal at its May 10 meeting.

“We’ve needed it for a long time,” Rossi said.