The terminal building at South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field could soon be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A nomination for the National Register designation has been approved by the State Review Board of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
The SARA terminal was one of 18 properties around the state that was recommended for the national listing during a State Review Board meeting on April 4 in Little Rock.
Members of the El Dorado airport and historic district commissions and the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society attended the meeting.
“There was a short discussion and then the board voted yes for approval!” announced Mickey Murfee, chairman of the airport commission.
The review board will forward its recommendation to the National Park Service for final approval.
The post-WWII-era terminal was designed by late architect John B. Abbott, one of the founders of CADM Architecture, Inc.
CADM prepared a master plan to renovate and restore the terminal building and updated the plan in 2017, with a preliminary budget estimate of $2.1 million.
Airport commissioners are exploring options to secure funding for the project.
In July 2015, the airport commission voted to rebuild the terminal. Murfee cast the lone no vote at the time.
The commission abandoned the new-construction plan nearly a year later amid staunch opposition from local and state historic preservationists, a federal Section 106 Review and a potential Section 4(f) process, which stipulates how the Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation may approve the use of certain property, including public or private historical sites.
Historic district commissioners previously said the airport terminal had been deemed eligible for a National Register listing more than a decade ago, but the city did not advance the nomination process at the time.
With a $13,500 grant that was awarded by the AHPP last year, the historic district commission selected bidder CRA Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., of Indiana and Kentucky to conduct a survey of the building and prepare the National Register nomination.
Murfee said CRA presented the nomination to the State Review Board last week.
According to the nomination, “The Goodwin Field Administration Building exhibits several characteristics shared by both (Moderne and International) architectural styles, including smooth exterior walls with minimal ornamentation; flat roofs; rounded edges along the flat projecting eaves; wraparound windows covering large expanses of the wall planes; and the use of glass blocks to fill a window.”
The airport commission recently spearheaded a roof replacement for the SARA terminal building, using a $64,600 grant from the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics and matching funds from the El Dorado Works economic development tax.
Murfee said the National Parks Service could take several months to make a decision.
Tia Lyons may be contacted at 870-862-6611 or by email at tlyons@ eldoradonews.com.