By: Katie Beth Haidet
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – The Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) will soon begin a $34 million terminal renovation.
The groundbreaking ceremony will be held Tuesday, March 14 at 1 p.m..
Hight Jackson Associates of Rogers has been contracted to work on the final design of the project.
Partner at the Hight Jackson Associates, Larry Perkin said they competed nationally for about six years putting together a tremendous team of professionals from all countries, but mainly locally to finally be the company chosen.
“This is about northwest Arkansas. You get off the plane and you will feel a sense of place,” said Perkin.
Perkin said while being an architect there are projects in life that you just knock them down and complete them to complete them, but this project is going to be one that they live in and breathe in on a daily basis.
In the process it became a national airport instead of a regional airport.
“We wanted to make the terminal a more interesting place, it needed to grow, it needed to be upgraded in lots of aspects. We came up with idea after idea. There was a constant thing of always having fresh ideas and doing what’s best for the airport long term,” said Perkin.
Perkin said they went through a lot of ideas changing them daily. They considered the money that they had and what is most important to focus on now, rather than later.
The airport will be in full construction following spring break.