Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson and Mayor of Reykjavík Jón Gnarr signed an agreement on Friday on constructing a new terminal building for Reykjavík Domestic Airport, scheduled to open in spring 2015.
Photo: Páll Kjartansson/Iceland Review.
The new terminal will be around 2,500 square meters in size, twice as large as the current terminal. It will be located to the east of the current one, Morgunblaðið reports.
The agreement includes that ISAVIA will take over the ownership and operations of the current Air Iceland terminal building and that earlier plans on building a transport center in Vatnsmýri, where the airport is located, will be dropped.
The northeast-southwest runway will be closed and the land to the south of the airport will become a new residential area. Aviation safety will be increased, among other measures, by lowering trees in Öskjuhlíð by Perlan.
Árni Gunnarsson, managing director of Air Iceland, said a new terminal building has significant meaning for the domestic airlines as the current one has long become obsolete. Now all domestic airlines can be facilitated in the same terminal.
As Árni told Iceland Review in an interview last year, the design of the new terminal building will allow for it to be taken apart and constructed elsewhere should the airport later be relocated.
The final cost has yet to be determined but according to current estimates the project will cost ISK 750-1,000 million (USD 6.4-8.5 million, EUR 4.9-6.6 million).
According to ruv.is, the construction of a new terminal can begin next winter and of a new 800-apartment residential area in Vatnsmýri within three years.
The role of the BSÍ bus terminal is to be increased as Strætó, the Reykjavík bus company, is to have its headquarters there. Facilities for long-distance buses and the air shuttle are also to be improved.
Related:
19.03.2013 | Eight Hundred New Apartments Planned in Reykjavík
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