New terminal in bidding process

Plans for a new terminal at the Mount Pleasant Regional Airport are scheduled to take off sometime in June.

The Charleston County Aviation Authority is currently going through the bidding process for a new 2,400-square-foot terminal to be built on the airport's current property on Faison Drive.

The estimated $1.96 million building would be funded in part through state and federal grants of about $1.1 million with $500,000 coming from the S.C. Department of Commerce's Division of Aeronautics and a $636,000 from the federal government.

Susan Stevens, director of airports for the Charleston County Aviation Authority, said a new improved terminal was needed because the current facility for small planes was built in 1987 and is too small and outdated.

The new terminal would become a "good front door" for the community, she said.

When the airport originally opened Mount Pleasant was a small town and the facility was in the middle of nowhere, Stevens said.

"Now it's an integral part of the Mount Pleasant community and the town of Mount Pleasant," she said.

Roper St. Francis plans to break ground on its new hospital just down the road from the airport at the corner of Faison Drive and U.S. Highway 17. Carolina Park, a master planned community of commercial space and up to 1,750 residences, lies to the north.

A new terminal would better blend with current and future surroundings than the metal fabricated buildings now on site, Stevens said.