GULF SHORES - While the old Gulf State Park Convention and Hotel facility along the Gulf is being razed for a not-yet-determined purpose, Jack Edwards Airport  is growing — up, up and away, beyond old expectations.

The airport originally was an outlying field for Naval Air Station Pensacola. The U.S. Navy sold it to the state of Alabama in 1977, and the airport was named for then U.S. Rep. Jack Edwards.

In 1983 the state sold the airport to the city of Gulf Shores, which then could sell fixed base operations. A new terminal was built in 1998, and a runway extension to approximately 7,000 feet was completed in 2003.

A localizer is in place for Runway 9 and an Instrument Landing System (ILS) on Runway 27. The runway extension and the instrument systems have opened the airport to jets and larger aircraft landings. Currently Jet Center South holds the fixed base contract and Enterprise has the auto rental service.

The aerial view will show the extensive hangar and maintenance buildings erected for growing traffic needs, and shows empty space for the addition of buildings by the City of Gulf Shores, Airport Authority and private investors.

Other concepts such as restaurants, additional parking and premises fire-rescue station are already on the horizon. The Authority is constructing a large aircraft hangar and an expansion to the terminal building. Private investors are building two aviation business offices and hangars in the Industrial Park.

According to the Airport Authority’s projected plans, the Airport may expect to see an air traffic control tower, a new taxiway, and possibly a status of  “regional airport” in years to come.

“We  have 60,000 operations annually, and the mix between business and pleasure is about bout 35 percent business and 65 percent pleasure,” said Russ Kilgore, manager of the Airport Authority of the City of Gulf Shores. The Airport/citizen relationship is maintained by the fixed base operators who provide meeting space once a month for the Ancient Aviators of South Alabama and daily for instructor/student flight training. As a destination and a stop-over, visiting airmen find both jet fuel and AvGas.

The Jack Edwards Airport’s horizontal/physical plant growth in the past 30 years ranks equal in status to the vertical growth of condo structures. As one observer put it, “The airport may in some way reduce the ground traffic.”  Inasmuch as this is a heavily-traveled resort area, his words seem appropriate.