SGR Visits DXZ

OPENING: The 3781st meeting of SGR started and ended on a bus! Don Pendleton asked for the blessings of heaven on the travel to the new St. George Replacement Airport and on the box lunches provided by Jimmy Johns.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: President Ken encouraged current and next year’s board members to attend the upcoming District Assembly on Saturday, April 17 in Cedar City. He also encouraged attendance at the upcoming Utah Rotary District Conference the weekend of May 13-15 in St. George.

PROGRAM: In a bus on loan from the college - and Asst. City Manager Marc Mortensen as the tour guide - members of SGR traveled five miles southeast of downtown St. George to tour the new St. George Replacement Airport - the nation’s second green-filled airport (Denver was the first) and the largest project in the history of Washington County at a cost of $160 million. The airport will temporarily be identified with call letters DXZ until the current mesa top airport is decommissioned. At that time, the 1203-acre facility will be known as St. George Regional Airport - with a catchment area including seven counties (Washington, Iron, Beaver, Garfield, Kane, Clark and Lincoln) and will once again claim SGU as its call letters.

The location was selected out of 15 sites in Washington County considered in the beginning, despite the initial lack of water, sewer, electricity and access - and an overabundance of blue clay. The project has involved more than 15 contractors in the region and includes a new terminal building which is 2.5 times the size of the existing terminal.

From its first day of operations in January 2011, the new St. George Municipal Airport will be able to accommodate planes up to the size of a 737. Negotiations are currently in progress with airlines based in Denver, Phoenix, Dallas/Fort Worth and in parts of California to carry passengers to Salt Lake City and a number of other regional destinations currently not available. Around the perimeter of the new airport, thousands of acres of developable property is also expected to produce long-term economic development growth in the county.