DeKalb-Peachtree Airport

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DeKalb-Peachtree Airport
IATA: PDK - ICAO: KPDK

Image:KPDK_DeKalb-Peachtree_Airport.jpg
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator DeKalb County
Serves Atlanta, Georgia
Elevation AMSL 1,003 ft (305.7 m)
Coordinates 33°52′32.2″N, 84°18′07.1″W
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
2R/20L 6,000 1,829 Concrete
2L/20R 3,746 1,142 Asphalt
16/34 3,967 1,209 Asphalt
9/27 3,383 1,031 Asphalt
Helipads
Number Size Surface
ft m
H1 56 17 Concrete

DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (IATA: PDK, ICAO: KPDK) is a municipal general aviation airport located in Chamblee, Georgia, just northeast of Atlanta. It is operated by the local government of DeKalb County, Georgia, and is also known commonly as Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, or simply PDK. Other names (rarely used) include Peachtree Airport, DeKalb Airport, or DeKalb County Airport. It is more commonly called "Peachtree DeKalb". ASOS weather reports are produced 24 hours per day as "Chamblee". On the radio, however, it is referred to as "Peachtree Tower" or "Peachtree Ground".

Contents

[edit] History

The airport originally began during early World War II as Naval Air Station Atlanta, now located in Marietta on the south side of Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The property was part of Camp Gordon, a World War I era training camp. Leased from the county by the U.S. Navy, it was converted from military to civilian use from 1957 to 1959. The former barracks located there during the war became classrooms in late 1948 for Southern Technical Institute, a new engineering technology school created by Georgia Tech for former soldiers. Like NAS Atlanta, that school moved around 1958 to land donated by Dobbins, and is now known as Southern Polytechnic State University.[1]

[edit] Facilities

The airport still has 765 acres or 3.1km² of land, with over 100 hangars and several hundred aircraft based there. It is the second-busiest airport in Georgia behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the number of flight operations per year (around 250,000), and helps to relieve ATL of smaller-airplane traffic. It also has a helipad, used by helicopters for metro Atlanta's four major news TV stations (WSB-TV 2, WAGA-TV 5, WXIA-TV 11, WGCL-TV 46) as the base for electronic news gathering from the air. A control tower was built in 1988, and stands at 130 feet or 40 meters tall. The main runway (20L) is 6000 feet or 1829 meters long.

[edit] Economic impact

DeKalb Peachtree Airport occupies a prime location inside the Perimeter, located less than fifteen minutes from Atlanta's major business centers in Buckhead and Midtown.[2] This proximity drives the 600 operations logged daily by the airport which makes it the second busiest in the state of Georgia behind Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest, located eighteen miles away.

In 1997, DeKalb Peachtree Airport was one of the largest tax contributors of DeKalb County, behind The Southern Company and Bellsouth but receives no taxpayer dollars for operations. The 1997 study found that in addition to 762 aviation-related jobs at the airport, there were indirect benefits of $14 million in annual visitor spending as well as 3,600 non-airport jobs driven by airport activities.[2]

While not primarily driven by the airport, a 30-acre mixed-use project called International Village is under development near the airport with a planned completion date of 2009. The previously residential property was purchased by Dekalb County as part of a noise mitigation buyout and ultimately sold to the developer, PDK Investments, LLC, in 2005.[3] The project name references the cultural and ethnic diversity of the surrounding neighborhoods and the Buford Highway corridor. The development is slated for a mix of low- and mid-rise commercial and retail space and will also host a boutique hotel and conference center as well as an amphitheater and green space for community festivals.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Duguay, J. C. (June 2000). DeKalb Peachtree Airport - Our History. DeKalb Peachtree Airport. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
  2. ^ a b c Glier, Ray. "DeKalb Peachtree proves to be economic driver", Atlanta Business Chronicle, 2007-10-19. Retrieved on 2007-10-24. 
  3. ^ Prophet, Tatiana. "'Village' to rise at DeKalb airport", Atlanta Business Chronicle, 2005-03-05. Retrieved on 2007-10-24. 

[edit] External links

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