July 2018

282 283 THE ROSWELL INTERNATIONAL AIR CENTER ing a complete upgrade of the electric grid within the airport.With new primary lines, we’ll be going up to a 12K system from a 4K system. “Another ongoing project is making a land-use map.We have areas that are for aeronautical revenue generation and areas that are not aeronau- tical revenue generating. So, we’ll try to flesh out where we might put other MROs, where we might put an aviation manufacturing facility, so on and so forth. That’s ongoing and involves a lot of potential future expan- sion on our southeast side where we have roughly a thousand acres that can be developed. “This year, because of the airline growth that we’ve had here, and the number of passengers going in the large airplanes that the airlines are using, we’re doing a study on our terminal to look at capacity for the next 20 years; to see what that growth is going to look like, long-term. The product to come out of that study should be a design concept either for a complete redo– a tear down and rebuild of a new terminal - or how we might expand this terminal to meet the needs. Associated with that will be a study on parking because, obviously, when you have passengers getting on planes, they need their cars here.” “A project that’s connected to the airport, but not in the airport, is to up- grade the interconnection to our highway system,” adds Roswell’s Mayor, Dennis J. Kintigh. “It’s about a seven-tenths of a mile stretch of road that requires the rebuild of an intersection with a major north/south highway. The intent is to upgrade the intersection so that it’s easier for businesses, truck traffic, and indi- viduals to access the airport.” One of the main advantages, in addition to easy access, that Kintigh believes makes RIAC especially attractive to companies that want to locate there is the city’s abundant water supply. “This is the southwestern United States and water is a precious commodity,” he states. “It is hard to come by. Roswell sits on top of a very unusual, if not unique, aquifer - one that is constantly being recharged through the mountains to our west. As such, the City of Roswell is in the best shape, water-wise of any city in New Mexico.We’re on the edge of the Permian Basin oil and gas field, and we have water. That makes us different for many in- dustries that want to come and develop.” Another advantage at RIAC is the presence of Eastern New Mexico University which was founded in Roswell in 1958, and started life as a traditional, rural com- munity college. “In 1967, it moved out to the Walker Air Force base property and