SGF moves to add hangar space

Airport officials want to clean up the city’s “front door” to economic development, and they’re starting with some $5 million of improvements at Springfield-Branson National Airport’s general aviation terminal.

During the 2013 State of the Airport address held April 25 at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, SGF Director of Aviation Brian Weiler laid out the needs for additional hangars and renovations for general aviation used by private plane owners, mostly businesspeople.

“This is a very important part of the airport. It is literally our front door to the business community,” Weiler said in his address, while unveiling plans to improve the east side of the airport property, including a redesign of the former commercial terminal entrance.

SGF’s 25 general aviation hangars are fully occupied, Weiler said, and the airport has a waiting list of more than 40 individuals.

“The last thing I want to say to Jim Anderson or Ryan Mooney when they bring a prospect here that comes in on a corporate aircraft is, ‘I don’t have any hangar space for you to build’ or ‘Come back in a year-and-a-half,’” Weiler said.

He said the airport received approval for a $5 million grant with a 10 percent match last fall from the Missouri Department of Transportation to redesign the entryway to the old terminal – now home to some 800 Expedia employees – and prepare space for seven new hangars through MoDOT’s State Aviation Trust Fund. The funds were slated to arrive in fiscal 2016, but Weiler said SGF applied in January to receive the funds sooner, and the airport was granted preliminary approval this month.

The trust fund, which is designed to help fund infrastructure improvements at airports statewide, is supported by a state sales tax on jet fuel.

Weiler said while the grant isn’t guaranteed, funding looks favorable, according to MoDOT, and the airport has received the green light to bid the infrastructure and hangar project. He said construction could begin as soon as August and wrap up by early 2014.

SGF spokesman Kent Boyd said renovations in front of the former terminal would redesign the parking area to make it more accessible. The airport moved into the $117 million midfield terminal on the south side of its property in May 2009, opening up the former terminal on West Kearney for lease. In March 2010, Bellevue, Wash.-based Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) signed a five-year lease to occupy the former terminal.

Weiler said the SGF board has approved pulling $250,000 from the airport’s capital reserve fund to remodel its 23-year-old general aviation terminal.

“We’re not tearing down walls or anything, we’re just making it more pleasing,” Weiler said.

Local Realtor and licensed pilot John Heitz said he’s been flying out of the airport for 35 years, and he supports upgrades to the general aviation terminal.

“That’s the gateway to Springfield,” he said. “When I started flying, there were very few business jets to fly in here. But now, there are quite a few business jets to come here because of O’Reilly Automotive and Bass Pro. Even people out of Branson come in here, and that facility is the first thing they see.”

Local companies that occupy corporate hangars, according to SGF, include Bass Pro Shops, BKD LLP, Great Southern Bank and Killian Construction Co.

The general aviation terminal facelift includes pulling up and replacing floor tiles, new paint, and fixing and replacing creaking doors, Weiler said. Olsson Associates Inc. was selected to manage engineering services, and Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative was named interior designer, according to Weiler, who said work should begin in May and take six months to complete.

Cory Collins, a licensed pilot who works in the Springfield law office of Husch Blackwell LLP, said he flies a single-engine Piper Archer out of SGF, generally for personal use. He said he has an informal lease with the co-owner of his plane for the Archer’s hangar at the airport.

“It’s a great idea to add hangar space because there is typically none available in the area,” Collins said, noting before his current arrangement, nothing was available last year at the Springfield-Branson National Airport and the Downtown Airport on East Division Street. “If you don’t have any more space to hangar planes, general aviation pilots will have to look to other communities to base their planes.”

Springfield-based Steelman Transportation Inc. co-owner Brett Sheets, whose name appears on an airport list of 44 individuals interested in general aviation hangar space, said he would consider building a hangar. He already owns a 60-by-60-foot hangar that houses three planes, one used regularly for his business and the other two owned by renters. Nearly three times per month, Sheets said company officials fly out to visit clients throughout the Midwest.

“They need additional bigger hangars such as the one we’re in for more business-type aircraft,” Sheets said.

Hangar manufacturer Erect-A-Tube Inc. in Harvard, Ill., has either built or leases all of SGF’s 25 hangars. CEO Susan Wagner said the company currently doesn’t have plans to build additional hangars in Springfield, but she said creating the additional space is a smart way to promote business development.

“It’s really forward thinking on their part,” Wagner said. “It could be a good incentive for a company that is considering Springfield versus a community that might not have that type of access.”