The answer: $3.7 million impact on the local economy. The question: why should the city own and manage an airport.

The question has been asked several times over the years. The answer came Monday during the grand-opening ceremony for the new terminal building at Washington-Warren Airport. Providing the answer was Tony Tata, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Tata, a retired Army brigadier general, made it clear that small, publicly owned airports are a tool in the economic-development toolbox.

“Washington-Warren Airport is responsible for more than $3.7 million in annual economic activity and supports about 30 jobs for this community,” Tata said at the ribbon-cutting event for the $1.1 million new terminal, which replaces the terminal destroyed by a gustnado July 1, 2012.

The airport’s proposed budget for the upcoming 2015-2016 fiscal year is $506,589. So, for an investment of just over a half-million dollars, the city can expect a little more than $3.5 million in airport-related economic activity in the next fiscal year. That’s a pretty good rate of return on that investment.

Washington-Warren Airport is not alone in helping the economy.

“To give you a statewide perspective, North Carolina’s 72 publicly owned airports contributed nearly $26 billion to the state’s economy, which is 6 percent of the state’s gross domestic product,” said Tata.

That statement helps take the wind out of statements that characterize small, public airports as playgrounds for private pilots and skydivers.

Washington-Warren Field also serves another purpose.

Bobby Walston, director of DOT’s Division of Aviation, spoke about the importance of the airport and its new terminal building.

“Take just a second and realize that airport — part of that word is port. That’s what this represents. It’s a port into your community. If you think about his beautiful body of water out here and you look at the map of North Carolina, you see that this is a port that’s leading you into this beautiful area.”

Walston described seeing the new terminal building as the jet carrying him, Tata and others landed at the airport.

“What a first impression,” he said.

The city’s $35,000 investment in building the new terminal will pay off in more ways the one.