Construction crews are expected to begin building hangars at the Colorado Springs Airport this summer for Sierra Nevada Corp. and Rampart Aviation LLC, the first wave of development expected as a result of recently adopted tax breaks for projects on airport property.
Denver-based H+L Architecture filed plans earlier this month with the city’s Land Use Review office for a 30,500-square-foot hangar at 1707 Aviation Way that will be 50 feet tall with a 165-foot-wide door and 84 employee parking spaces. Sierra Nevada is listed as the hangar’s owner in project plans filed by Englewood-based engineering giant CH2M Hill.
A Sierra Nevada spokeswoman declined to comment on the project, but airport director Dan Gallagher said construction is scheduled to begin next monthand be completed in the fall.
The hangar will be next to a building at the airport that Sierra Nevada leased in December. The building and hangar will be used by an operation that will outfit Lockheed Martin C-130 and Boeing 737 aircraft with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment. That operation is not connected with Sierra Completions, a new Sierra Nevada subsidiary that plans to build an $88 million hangar complex at the airport to turn wide-body aircraft interiors into flying offices for high-end customers.
For the second project, JHW Investment Co. Ltd. plans to spend $2.5 million to build a 19,200-square-foot hangar for Rampart Aviation at 1727 Aviation Way,said Greg Janitell, who heads JHW’s finance operation. The new hangar will be adjacent to a 12,000-square-foot office and hangar complex that Rampart leases from JHW Investment, which operates its own hangar complex nearby. T-Bone Construction Inc. of Colorado Springs is expected to start work on the Rampart hangar this week and complete it by Aug. 31, Janitell said.
The new hangar will allow Rampart to more than double its 20-person staff during the next two or three years as the company expands its aircraft maintenance operations, said Jeff Perkins, Rampart’s vice president of business management.
Rampart moved to the Colorado Springs Airport from North Carolina about a year ago to expand its flight services, aircraft maintenance and aviation training support operations, which mostly support military units involved in parachute drops.
“We couldn’t be in a better place right now because of the unique capabilities of this airport, including some of the longest runways in the state and the civilian, commercial and military aviation operations that are based at this airport,” Perkins said.
Both Sierra Nevada and Rampart were attracted to the local airport by a series of tax breaks enacted last year by the city of Colorado Springs, El Paso County, the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Both projects also are being shepherded through the approval process by the city’s Rapid Response Team, which is designed to halve the amount of time required to get projects approved, Gallagher said.