ST. GEORGE — St. George officials were recently given reports on current and future work being done the regional airport. This included an update on the placement and initial design concept for a multimillion dollar air traffic control tower that state officials granted funding for earlier this year.

The City Council was given an update on the control tower during its Aug. 8 work meeting by Interim Airport Manager Dustin Warren. What he shared with the council specifically was a 15% design review of the project that outlined the basics of the project and where the control tower is set to be built.

Following the Legislature’s appropriating $15 million for the project work soon started on surveying different sites for the control tower. The was done by a team of specialists with the Federal Aviation Administration who examined five locations using virtual reality headsets.

“They were able to use VR headsets to physically be in the tower and be able to adjust the height so they knew how high and where the tower should be,” Warren said.

Using virtual reality to glimpse the airfield from the various locations helped speed up site selection process by knocking off 12-to-18 months, he said.

“It’s a really awesome innovation that went into this,” Warren said.

A similar process using virtual reality and drones was recently used by an engineering firm to scout out prospective air traffic control tower sites for the Boulder City Municipal Airport in Nevada.

Considerations that go into a tower site section include whether or not it interferes with existing navigational aids, how tall the tower needs to be to allow controllers to maintain a visual on the area, if all movement can be seen from the tower, along with items related to geotechnical and soil considerations and how the movement of the sun may impact the ability to see from the tower’s cab.

The FAA team reviewed five proposed locations for a tower at the St. George Regional Airport and settled on a spot on the hillside west of the airport’s terminal and airfield.

The preliminary design to the tower has it standing at 70 feet with seven levels. The first five levels include utilities, a locker room, communications, a staff break room, the tower manager’s office, a conference and training area and an FAA communications facility. The top two levels include a utility floor underneath the air traffic control cab at the top level.

With the tower being just 70 feet, it’ll save the city money, Warren said, as an additional level can run $1 million-plus.

“This is a very, very expensive structure,” he said.

As for the general design of the tower, the city is opting for a rectangular structural rather than an octagonal one seen in the initial renderings of the tower. This will also allow the city to save money while giving it move space to work with, Warren added.

After presenting the initial design concept to the council, Warren said someone will update them again when the design level has reached 30%.

While air traffic control for the St. George Airport is currently handled by FAA staff out of Los Angeles, the federal agency deemed the regional airport a candidate for it own control tower due increasing flight increases in and out of the facility.

The airport saw its highest passenger numbers in 2021 — nearly 326,000 — as travel rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. Though 2022 saw a dip in passengers (274,500), the end of 2023 saw an increase, with over 298,000 people going to and from the airport.

Having a tower all its own will increase the safety and efficiency of flight operations around the airport of both airlines, commercial and private fliers, former Airport Manager Rich Stehmeier said in January.

The tower will also help SkyWest Airlines, which operates commercial flights at the airport, expand operations, said Robert Simmons, the CFO of the St. George-based regional airline.

SkyWest manages the commercial flights in and out of the airport and handles 2,000 flights a day across the country. It also one of the biggest employers in Washington County.

Through its partnerships with Delta, United and American Airlines, SkyWest offers connector flights to Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Denver, as well as a seasonal flight to Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. Flights to Los Angeles are set to return in September.

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