Jacksonville Airport Authority is moving forward with the creation of its 20-year plan, which will outline what projects the airport is interested in taking on over the next two decades.

The project is comparable to a “wish list,” meaning it won’t be a finalized list of required projects the airport has to take on. Developing the plan is expected to take between 18 to 24 months.

“It’s a long-term plan for the airport really to establish the vision for the airport for the next 20 years,” said Susan Zellers, a senior project manager with Hanson Professional Services. “In it, we look at the airfields, the runways, the taxiways, the navigation aids. We also look at the hangars and terminal building, so the support infrastructure for the aircraft.”

The airport already will undergo remodeling. Officials estimate the project’s first phase will cost around $400,000 to $500,000. The bidding process has not yet opened.

“We’ll also be looking at the overall airport for what areas to reserve for those aviation uses and if there are areas that could be potentially developed for a non-aviation use where the revenue would help support the aeronautical or the aviation functions of the airport,” Zellers said.

Zellers and her colleague, Jeffrey Olson, met Tuesday with the airport manager and other stakeholders to get insight into the airport. Olson described it to the airport authority during their April board meeting as a “kick-off” meeting.

“One thing that I took away from it, as we were talking about the strengths of the airport as a group, was recognizing all the corporate and small business users there so that we can continue to meet their needs as well as expand it further,” Olson said.

“The next step is then we look at the activity there, existing activity, and do an aviation forecast,” Zellers said. “We look at local trends, state trends, national trends as to, in over 20 years, what type of activity may the airport need to support or want to support.”

As the project moves along and the airport decides what items are a priority, they’ll be able to sort projects by year-based priorities, Olson said.

“I don’t think we’re right there at that point now to stack (projects) in prioritization and figure out 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 20 (years) just yet,” Olson said. “But that will be coming through the course of this project.”