Tri-City Regional Port District: 1959-2009

PRESS RELEASES

MAKER OF AIR-INFLATED DOMES EYES MADISON FOR FACTORY

By Will Buss, News-Democrat

The maker of some of the world's largest air-inflated domes wants to build a factory in the metro-east.

Arizon Air Structures, of Bridgeton, Mo., will meet with the city of Madison's Building Commission to discuss the company's plans to build a manufacturing plant and warehouse on six acres of River's Edge, the business park at the Tri-City Regional Port District in Granite City and Madison. Facilities manager Jim Scheer said the company has leased the land and needs enough room where at least two of its larger 80,000-square-foot domes can fit inside so workers have enough space to build them. He said construction of the plant could begin by spring and could initially employ 20 to 40.

Arizon was developed from the Johnson Heater Corp., of Maryland Heights, Mo., which has been developing heating and cooling systems since the 1920s. The company originally provided the mechanics for air-dome structures in the 1960s. Today, the Arizon Cable Grid System is made of a patented fabric that can withstand 150-mph wind gusts and up to 50 pounds of snow and ice per square foot.

"It's nothing more than a heating and cooling unit blowing a quantity of air into a building that is held in place by a network of cables laced across the top and anchored by a grate beam foundation," Scheer said. "All of the load and wind and snow is transferred to the ground."

The company manufactures mainly for sports and recreational uses. It has manufactured and installed air structures for the Korean and Chinese Olympics and has built a 135,000-square-foot dome, its largest, in Williamsport, Pa. Other clientele include the Regency Raquet Club in McLean, Va.; the Memphis YMCA; an all-weather sports center for the University of Colorado in Greenwood Village, Colo.; the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto; and a tennis court dome for the Sportovni Klub Smichov in Prague in the Czech Republic.