2 Hangars Planned for Wilkes Airport: Advertising for Lease Plans Also Approved
By Monte Mitchell, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
Mar. 9–WILKESBORO
Two new hangars are planned for the Wilkes County Airport, signs that the county-owned airport is recovering from the financial hit it took when Lowe’s Cos. moved its aviation operations to Statesville in 2004, administrators say.
Yesterday, Wilkes County commissioners approved a motion to allow airport officials to proceed with engineering plans and construction of a 10,000-square-foot hangar. The county hangar would offer rental space to park privately owned planes.
Commissioners also approved advertising of a proposal to lease ground space at the airport so that JR Vannoy & Sons Construction Co. of Jefferson can build a hangar of its own for its company planes. Details of the lease will be decided later.
Lee Herring, the chairman of the nine-member airport board, told commissioners that the airport has $600,000 in federal grants, which will pay for up to 90 percent of the hangar’s cost. The balance of the money would come from an enterprise fund generated through airport operations.
Lowe’s had five planes at the airport and was the county’s biggest purchaser of aviation gas or jet fuel. Those fuel sales are the biggest way the county makes money at the airport, and Lowe’s departure cut fuel sales there by about half, said Jack Steelman, the airport manager.
“It hurt bad; it really did,” he said.
Lowe’s moved its 22-employee aviation operation in December 2004 to the Statesville airport, putting it closer to the new company headquarters in Mooresville.
In the final year that the aviation operation was in Wilkes, Lowe’s spent $1.2 million on jet fuel. With 31/2 months to go in this fiscal year, fuel sales — including both jet fuel and aviation gas used by turboprop planes — is $611,000.
But Lowe’s left a silver lining in the form of $1 million accrued in the airport’s enterprise fund.
“Lowe’s left, but they left us in good financial stead to get our feet back on the ground,” Herring said.
This year, the county expects the airport to be in the black for the first time since Lowe’s left.
The increasing business has come from various places. Dove Air Inc., a company based in Asheville that sells aircraft, bought the Lowe’s hangar and moved in last October.
Developers of Laurelmor, the luxury-resort development being built in Wilkes and Watauga counties, are using the Wilkes airport, as are various industries.
The county’s existing hangar stays full of private planes. There’s already a need for more hangar space, Steelman said.
“The other day, (Laurelmor developers) flew in and needed to hangar one of their planes overnight, and we couldn’t offer them that service,” he said. Dove Air allowed the developers to keep their plane overnight in the Dove hangar.
Steelman said that having additional hangar space will help accommodate other customers who have expressed interest in coming to the airport.
The Wilkes County Airport has a 6,200-foot runway and has a system for instrument landings. Because of the long runway, the instrument system and generally better weather, the airport is often used by fliers from Watauga and Ashe counties.
Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian relief organization that’s based in Boone and headed by Franklin Graham, operates four planes out of the Wilkes airport.
Herring said that site work for the county’s hangar could begin within the next six weeks.
–Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
—–
Copyright (c) 2007, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
NYSE:LOW,