New GFK Terminal

At tomorrow night's Grand Forks city council meeting, council members will see a presentation about the new passenger terminal being planned for Grand Forks International Airport. According to the presentation, construction will take place from 2009-2011 and the finished structure is estimated to cost around $21 million.

Update -10/13/2008 - 11:48 PM
Here is a description of the new terminal and some more pictures courtesy of the JLG Architects website:

Designed for efficiency, improved circulation, and future expansion, the new Grand Forks International Terminal offers a comfortable traveling environment within a “Wow Factor” showpiece for the State. Located on a new site, the two-level terminal provides two gates capable of boarding aircraft from the Saab SF340A to the Boeing B757-300 through a passenger bridge with access to all planes, including commuter flights. Space outside the facility includes curbside loading, parking for 400 vehicles, car rental facilities, and a new aircraft apron. Materials, including stone, metal panels, concrete masonry units, and glass curtain wall, were selected to fit the landscape, as well as evoke the concepts of flight. In order to avoid a “visual shadow” for the control tower, the front of the Terminal is slightly higher than the back.

Allegiant Air starting service on Monday

On Monday, Allegiant Air, will debut its twice-weekly, non-stop flights between Las Vegas and Grand Forks International Airport.  (press release) 

The discount airline is utilizing 150-seat planes for the flights.  Allegiant Air has advertised one-way ticket prices as low as $99 between Grand Forks and Las Vegas.  However, a search of the airline's website shows ticket prices as low as $29 (Monday, October 6) and as high as $329 (Friday, December 5).

Are you excited to see Grand Forks finally getting service from another airline?  Are you planning to utilize these flights in the near future?  What other destinations would you like to see added by Allegiant or other potential airlines?

Poll results: Hello Allegiant Air!

The old poll question was "Will you use Allegiant Air's new flight from GFK to Las Vegas?" and, with over 130 votes, the result is a strong "yes" from readers. In fact, 70% of readers polled answered that they are likely to use Allegiant in the future. (results)

Selection		Votes
Likely to use	70%	97
Not likely to use	20%	27
Unsure	10%	14
138 votes total

New poll: GFK to Vegas

It's about time for a new poll, huh? The new question is "Will you use Allegiant Air's new flight from GFK to Las Vegas?" I'll be interested to hear from you guys. I would also like to hear about other possible destinations that you're interested in.

GFK plans forthcoming

A reliable source tells me that the plans for the new Grand Forks International Airport terminal will be released within the next week or two. What are you hoping to see in this new structure? Will a new terminal make you more likely to use GFK in the future?

Open Thread #1

I'm going to blatantly rip off Dakota Huseby and start having an "Open Thread" from time to time. What can you talk about in an open thread like this? Anything you want! Use it like a message board and post anything that's on your mind. I think this might also be a good source of post ideas for me.

Comment away!

Topics covered: Grand Forks' new Kohl's store, southend traffic flow, GFK terminal

Newsbits: GFAFB future, campus housing, GFK ticket prices

I'm one of those crazy few who sometimes like to be one of the first people in town to read the day's Herald when it comes online...at 3 A.M.! I did so this morning before going to bed and I was pretty happy with three of the stories.

•A "Family of UAVs" for GFAFB...
On Tuesday, Governor Hoeven told the Grand Forks Council on Military Relations that GFAFB will soon be the home of a "family of UAVs" including Predators in 2009 and Global Hawks in 2010. We've heard this before, but its good to see that state leaders still feel so strongly about the future missions at the base. The relocation of our tanker mission will mean the removal of 2,645 jobs at the base and the new missions should bring around 2,000 new jobs to replace those. If that's the case, it leaves us with a net loss of 645 jobs at the base. Our leaders still sound pretty positive on the possibility of us getting a new tanker mission in the future. If that really happens, we would end up with a larger base than we started with before this BRAC round. I would consider that to be pretty good news!

Update - 6/17/2006
It's sounding like we can stop worrying about South Dakota getting our UAVs...read this article.

•New UND housing complex...
Ground was broken on Tuesday for the new $20 million dollar UND student housing complex west of the Chester Fritz Auditorium. This is the costliest public project ever built on campus (not considering the $100+ million dollar Ralph which was built with private funds) and is part of a larger $50 million dollar campaign - which also includes the new Wellness Center and new Parking Garage - to make the campus a better place for students. I'm really impressed with the design that has gone into this new student housing. If you haven't seen the renderings yet, take a look at this post that I put up a few weeks back.

•Suddenly, GFK is looking much better...
Tu-Uyen's Herald article says that ticket prices at GFK are suddenly cheaper than those at Fargo's Hector Field. This comes just days after Senator Dorgan and Grand Forks city council president Hal Gershman met with representatives of Northwest Airlines and pleaded with them to help the airport's dwindling business. I hope this is a permanent change on the part of Northwest. Lower ticket prices at GFK should have some sort of positive impact on use of the airport. I'm glad to see that something good seems to have come out of this meeting. Gee, wouldn't it be something if people from Fargo started to come to GFK for a change because we have cheaper ticket prices? Now, that would really be good news!