The Jackson County Airport is ready for more improvements after completing an estimated $2 million project that built 10 new T-Hangars.
Airport Manager Jim Young said T-Hangars are commonly used to house aircraft. Young said the new hangars will now enable the airport to provide fuel on-site.
“We’ll have more traffic out there, and working with T-DOT Aeronautics, they feel like now we have enough aircraft based at our facility that we could justify having fuel on the field,” Young said.
Young said all of the new hangars have already been rented out. Young said the hangars will help address the hangar demand in the Upper Cumberland.
“Part of the demand is because of the expense of T-Hangars, particularly when you start getting out towards Nashville,” Young said. “Our rental rates are competitive with the other small airports in the area, like Livingston and Lafayette.”
Young said the project took a couple of years to complete. Young said the bad soil was one of the major hurdles for the project.
“With us being located on the river bottom, the soil in that area is not good to have a heavy structure constructed on it like a T-Hangar, and we have to dig out and backfill with rock to create a structure that is solid enough to support the T-Hangars,” Young said. “So there’s some expense and time involved to accomplish all of that.”
Young thanked the late Jackson County Mayor Randy Heady for his efforts in acquiring grant funding to build the hangars. Young said likely the airport will wait till the next fiscal year before moving forward on providing fuel.
