The Spokane Airport Board has selected Lydig Construction Inc., of Spokane, to build a 16,000-square-foot aircraft rescue and firefighting facility at Spokane International Airport. The nearly $8 million project is scheduled to be completed in late 2014, says airport spokesman Todd Woodard.

The new rescue facility will have four equipment bays, a ramp and parking areas for support staff, an access road to Airport Drive, and another access road to the existing taxiways. Woodard says the single-story facility will be built south of the main terminal complex, replacing the currently facility located northeast of the main terminal.

"The new building will allow for faster response time to the existing runways, and also effective response time to the third runway we are planning for in the future," he says.

Woodard says that 90 percent of the funding for the new rescue facility is coming from the Federal Aviation Administration's Airport Improvement program, through which a 7.5 percent tax is collected on every plane ticket sold. The funds are collected by the government and then distributed to airports for projects. The other 10 percent of the project funding, he says, is coming from the airport's general funds.

The current 10,500-square-foot rescue facility was built in 1978, Woodard says. He says the old structure no longer meets current FAA requirements, which was the main reason for building a new facility. Woodard says he expects the old building will be used for some other purpose, but it hasn't yet been determined what that purpose will be.

Lydig, which won the contract for the rescue facility after a public bidding process, was founded in 1956 and has locations in Bellevue, Kennewick and Spokane. Integrus Architecture PS, of Spokane, designed the building.