DURHAM - The long saga of Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport moved forward Thursday when a UNC system committee approved a plan to build a new airport hangar at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

The hangar will house UNC-Chapel Hill's AHEC Medical Air Operations program, which flies doctors, pharmacists and other health care workers around the state to tend to patients in rural areas. UNC-CH officials say the RDU facility is a temporary fix; eventually, the university would like to build a new airport in southern Orange County but has yet to find a good site.

The program's location has long been a matter of contention in Chapel Hill. It is now housed at the Horace Williams Airport, part of a prime piece of property upon which the university plans to build Carolina North, a new research campus.

But UNC-CH doctors have opposed the plan, arguing that the airport's current location is convenient and that RDU is simply too far away for them to make efficient use of their time.

The budget and finance committee of the UNC system's Board of Governors approved the RDU hangar at a meeting Thursday at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. Today, the full board is expected to approve the plan, which then goes before the Council of State, a body of top statewide elected officials.

The 18,000-square-foot hangar will cost $3 million and will include an airplane parking area, flight operations office space, support areas, storage and vehicle parking. UNC-CH will lease 1.67 acres from the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority near the state Department of Transportation's hangar. The lease will have a term of at least 20 years.

The hangar will take about 18 months to build, said Jack Evans, Carolina North's executive director. Meanwhile, the university, which analyzed several other airport options before settling on RDU, will continue to look for a site closer to campus, officials said.

Many UNC-CH doctors and other health care workers use the AHEC planes to spend half or whole days at health clinics in the far reaches of the state. In a legislative hearing last summer, several UNC-CH doctors and pilots argued that adding at least an hour to their travel time on the day of each flight would take away time they could spend treating patients. It might prevent them from going altogether, they said.

Also Thursday, another UNC system committee approved a resolution endorsing UNC-CH's Carolina North plan after a presentation that showed the first phase of the development would be built along the current airport's runway. UNC-CH officials say Carolina North will mix public science with private money to allow university researchers to translate their laboratory work into real-world use.

"The campus has spent much time and much energy on this plan," board Chairman Jim Phillips said. "It is high time we move forward."

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.