Jet Access is building a corporate aviation and maintenance complex with two hangars at the airport south of Dallas.
Dallas — This story was originally dallas business journalWFAA News Partner.
Investment by both the city and businesses is pouring into Dallas Executive Airport, bringing the long-held promise to bring South Dallas a busy aviation hub and employment center closer to fruition.
The latest signs of growth are coming from existing airport tenants. Indianapolis-based Jet Access Group Inc. plans to open an 80,000-square-foot corporate aviation and maintenance complex on the southwest side of the facility in March. His $22.5 million project includes repair services, sleeping quarters, a pilot lounge, and his two corporate hangars known as Fixed Base Operator (FBO) terminals.
This represents part of the dream many have for the approximately 1,040-acre city-owned property located off Route 67 and less than 10 miles from downtown Dallas. Some champion the airport as a potential economic booster for underserved areas of the city, not to mention the need for an aviation hub away from the busy runways of Love Field and Addison. many.
“We saw Dallas Executive as an untapped treasure on the south side of Dallas,” said Sean White, executive vice president of FBO development for Jet Access. “For many years, its leverage has not been maximized. …We believe that Dallas Executive has a unique selling point that makes it attractive for companies like ours to come on board. We believe there are new stories to be told thanks to the investments we have made, and we invite you to be a part of that growth.”
Jet Access is leasing the space from Plano-based development firm Burchfield & Partners LLC, and after a long and winding process, broke ground on the hangar in late 2022. Rodney Burchfield started working on this idea in his 2017 year. Several potential tenants have backed out over the years, including his previously announced RBR Maintenance.
Burchfield's past work in the city's Economic Development Department and the Department of Aviation gave some council members pause when the project was put on the ballot, but in 2018, councilors narrowly voted in favor. . Other observers wondered if Mr. Burchfield and his company had been set up. In 2016 he was capable of getting the job done.
But the biggest unanswered question was whether companies would see the opportunity and sign up for Dallas Executive. Burchfield said he answered his concerns by ensuring he had jet access as a tenant.
But the new hangar is just a small portion of the 1 million square feet Burchfield & Partners plans to develop on about 25 acres on the west side of the airport. As such, more construction is expected, especially as the developer plans to build a new facility and show it off to potential tenants soon.
“We want to be the executive airport partner of Dallas' central business district,” Burchfield said. “When these companies move into the central business district, we partner with the city of Dallas to say, 'If your company has jets, this is where you can park your jets. We want to say, “Go to Addison Airport. You don't have to go to McKinney National Airport to park your jet.'' It's about bringing businesses to your city. This is a major selling point in attracting visitors. ”
He believes the Dallas Executive, with its airport code “RBD,” needs to grow if North Texas is to maintain its status as an aviation hub. He and others say Love Field is running out of space, especially as traffic has skyrocketed since the federal Wright Amendment expired in 2014. Other busy airports are also almost fully developed.
Burchfield said general aviation (traffic other than commercial aviation, including business jets and recreational planes) has been especially affected at busy Love Field. Small aircraft may need to wait in line behind a large number of passenger planes to use the runway.
“The property owners who own the Love Field hangar development are starting to hurt their tenants with rising rents, and that's a factor the city has no control over,” Burchfield said. “We tried to make a persuasive argument that it would be more beneficial to focus on Dallas Executive Airport, because the city of Dallas has access to this airport with available land for growth and development opportunities. “We're shifting our strategy to support general aviation at other airports.”
With this shift in thinking and more than $55 million in public and private investment, Dallas Executive “will one day become the premier general aviation airport in Dallas and North Texas,” Burchfield said.
Burchfield overcame funding challenges. He won his 2017 pitch contest by The Real Estate Council, and the prize money was set at his $1.2 million. But Burchfield said his contract was terminated before the funding came in due to delays in the development schedule, in part due to the pandemic. He said it took about three months of concerted effort to find a new equity partner.
All in all, the progress on the new hangar is welcome news for the city's aviation department.
The city's investment strategy in the Dallas Executive focuses on retaining tenants, creating jobs and improving infrastructure, such as when Dallas and the state spent $33 million a decade ago to extend the runway to 7,000 feet. I guessed it. It's clear that the west side of the airport is a place to watch. Dawn Blair, the city's aviation real estate manager, said the area has historically been relatively undeveloped and was previously home to towers, maintenance facilities and the Dallas Police Department's helicopter unit. .
“If you look at the aerial images, you can see there’s about 400 acres of developable land,” she said. “With just a little imagination, you can see a fully built-out west side. [with] Bigger aircraft, FBOs, and of course maintenance operations, and that's where your job is needed. That was always our goal. ”
Increased economic activity, especially larger aircraft, means more spending on fuel, an important source of income for airports. More importantly, Blair said, it will create more jobs.
“When we focus on aviation user acquisition, we want to know how many jobs you're creating,” she says.
The city hopes to announce further development at the airport later this year.
Construction continues on the new jet access facility for an anticipated spring opening. The company subleases a portion of its space (approximately 40,000 square feet) to Jets MRO LLC for its aviation maintenance component. Jets MRO founder and CEO Suresh Narayanan said the company plans to hire about 100 people within a year. Narayanan, who previously worked in space at Addison Airport when he was an executive at AQRD, said it offers an unusual combination of proximity to Dallas and space for growth.
“There is no other airport in the DFW area that I could move to and grow in the same vicinity,” Narayanan said in December. “It has to be in a different airport or a different area. What Dallas Executive gives us as an untapped gem is the ability to grow near the same campus, which is very efficient for the business. .”
Jet Access executives believe their facility will create 20 to 30 customer service jobs in addition to the Jets' MRO technicians. Jet Access is also working with the University of Dallas to launch an aviation maintenance training and airport operations certification program by spring.
“We strive to be deep in our communities and markets and involved,” White said. The company also aims to launch a flight training school in the metroplex. “What we want to be is the aviation service provider that people rely on. We want to be that one-stop shop. When someone thinks of civil aviation in Dallas, we think of jet access. I want to have it.”
