West Star Aviation, which opened a new corporate aircraft maintenance facility at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport this year, already is planning a multimillion-dollar expansion on the opposite side of the airfield.
The company plans to build a 45,000-square-foot paint facility on a 13-acre parcel that includes the former Air National Guard site on the passenger terminal side of the main runway, said Debi Cunningham, West Star's vice president of marketing. Also on the site, the aircraft maintenance and equipment firm plans to build a 55,000-square-foot maintenance facility, she said.
West Star said earlier it planned to invest $22.5 million into its current air maintenance facility when it purchased a 40,000-square-foot hangar on the west side of the airport last year.
Cunningham said she expects the new facilities will cost "at least that much or more."
West Star expects to employ between 225 and 250 people at the airport after the expansion, she said.
Cunningham said the state-of-the-art paint facility will go up first with the second maintenance facility to come later, likely around 2018.
She said whether the company keeps the existing maintenance facility will depend on business, though it would like to.
Thomas Hilboldt, West Star's general manager in Chattanooga, said the hope is that work will start on the paint shop at the National Guard site by year's end. Completion of the paint facility will be in fourth quarter 2017, according to West Star.
Terry Hart, the airport's chief executive, said the vacant 4-acre National Guard location has a clean environmental slate. After decades at the airport, the National Guard moved into a new Bonny Oaks Drive facility in 2010.
"West Star has arrived and is positioned for growth," Hart said.
He said the existing buildings on the National Guard property will be torn down.
West Star specializes in the repair and maintenance of air frames, windows and engines, as well as major modifications, avionics installation and repair, and interior refurbishment. It also handles surplus avionics sales, accessory services, paint and parts.
The company announced last year that it would move into the existing hangar on the airport's west side, which it obtained from a business owned by Cleveland, Tenn., businessman Allan Jones.
The initial Chattanooga facility was to hold mixed-use space used for administrative and customer offices, engineering avionics, cabinetry and upholstery shop functions, as well as accommodate storage of customer aircraft parts.
West Star has facilities in East Alton, Ill., Grand Junction, Colo., as well as in Chattanooga. It runs maintenance operations at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport in Aspen, Colo.; Chicago Executive Airport in Chicago, and Centennial Airport in Denver, Colo.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.