City and State Officials Break Ground on Downtown Mobile Airport
AL – Mobile’s new downtown airport terminal is officially off the ground. On Friday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, and a host of other officials broke ground on the new airport terminal. Set to open in 2025, the five-gate terminal at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley will become the new center for commercial travel in Mobile, while non-commercial flights will move to the Mobile Regional Airport in West Mobile. “It’s pretty simple. We had something broken out in West Mobile,” Stimpson said at Friday’s ceremony. “And this will fix that.”
All the speakers at Friday’s ceremony highlighted the prime location of the downtown airport. The Aeroplex is just six miles from the Port of Mobile, which boasts five rail lines and sits just off Interstate 10. With the deepening and widening of the port set to be completed in 2025 and the return of passenger rail service, Mobile is set to become a transportation hub, they said, which will lead to economic growth, “it’s imperative that we keep our foot in the door in the global market,” Ivey said Friday; “This new airport will lead to hundreds of well-paying jobs.”
The biggest star of the day was Shelby, who was also in town for a ceremony in his honor at the Mobile Convention Center. Chris Curry, president of the Mobile Airport Authority, Elliot Maisel, chairman of the MAA board, and other officials all noted that, without Shelby’s work to appropriate federal funds for the airport, the construction of the new terminal would not be possible. Still, the airport swap will be a massive undertaking: the project is now expected to cost $330 million, 31% more expensive than the original $252 million estimated cost. The city of Mobile will contribute $30 million to the project, and Mobile County will contribute $15 million. The rest of the funding will come from the federal government. Curry told AL.com earlier this week that the increase in costs is due primarily to the rise in construction costs due to inflation. In addition, he said other recent airport projects, such as upgrading the airport’s apron (tarmac), cost more than anticipated, causing Curry and the MAA to re-evaluate the cost of the new airport.
Curry maintains that the swap is needed to compete with other regional airports, including Pensacola International Airport and Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. According to data from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Mobile Regional Airport trails both the Birmingham and Huntsville airports in enplanements and the Gulfport airport. The eventual goal is for Mobile’s airport to have 12 gates, the same number as Pensacola airport. In addition, with the growth in Baldwin County, the MAA hopes that the new central location of the airport will draw more residents from both sides of the Mobile Bay, allowing the airport to continue to grow, “This allows Mobile to take advantage of the location and growth of other counties,” Curry said Friday.