Airport Authority razes several rental buildings

On March 23 Holmes County Airport Authority board member Roc Baker met with the Holmes County Commissioners to discuss progress on the airport’s effort to remove several buildings being rented out and continuing its effort to build new hangars and a new terminal.

Baker said the renters in the structures next to the airport have now vacated the premises and plans are moving forward. He said one positive was the renters, Hox Recycling, took all the recycling material with them when they moved out.

“We originally thought they were going to leave and force us to clean up all of the stuff they had collected, but they have removed that and we are delivering the message to the commissioners that the buildings are ready to be razed,” Baker said. “We are ready to move to whatever the next phase would be.”

He said that could mean bringing in someone to create specifications on the razing of the buildings and developing a plan and a cost so a request for bid can be issued.

“I understand you have different avenues you can pursue to do that,” Baker said to the commissioners. “We’re looking for instructions on what we should do next.”

Commissioner Dave Hall said the next step is dependent on how quickly the county would like to move on the project.

Holmes County Planning Commissioner Arnie Oliver said securing grant funding to raze the structures could move quickly with additional state funding currently coming available for demolition and county beautification grants.

“We have a couple of homes we aren’t doing with the current grant that we’ve kicked out, but (the county) has been awarded this grant, so you would definitely be entitled to use those funds to take this property down. I actually feel like this project fits nicely. These new funds are becoming available, so the timing is pretty good,” Oliver said.

Oliver said this project would adhere to the state grant funding guidelines, although he doesn’t yet know what the cost might be to do so. He estimated it would be less than what the county applied to the grant to have the former Holmes County Health Department building razed.

Progress on removing those buildings took an unexpected step forward recently when high winds caused major damage to two of the buildings, one of them being severely damaged.

Baker said with the destruction that took place, the three buildings will be somewhat of a nuisance now until razing takes place.

Oliver said getting a local excavating company to create a ballpark estimate would be worthwhile and said he would secure proposals.

Hall said if the cost is significant enough it requires proposal bids, the county can do that and take that out of the Airport Authority’s hands.

Acting quickly, Oliver got the plans in place, and the three buildings damaged in the wind storm have been razed.

Baker said the Airport Authority would like to use that vacated land for additional hangar space, so the demolition process should remove everything down to the dirt so that can take place.

Hall said that request can be made in the bid proposal.

Baker then said his board has had meetings with a designer to create a virtual design for the new hangar projects.

“We looked at preliminary things and made adjustments where it made sense,” Baker said. “If that proceeds along, we’d like to have walls up by the time snow flies this winter. We’re looking at least at having a roof on by the end of 2026.”

The goals of the additions to the airport are to allow for more airplanes to be stored there in the hangars and to make it more inviting to fly into Holmes County.