Behind the green plastic screen covering the chain link fence around Skytrails Aviation at Van Nuys Airport lays a bare dirt plot. In a number of months, however, construction will begin, adding approximately 120,000 square feet of hangars and 50,000 square feet of new office space for its fixed base operation. “Skytrails plans to make our FBO a “green project” by adding solar paneling for enough electricity to be self-sustaining for many years,” said its Chairman and CEO Mark Sullivan. “We are also looking to use electrical motor equipment to reduce noise and pollution for our ground service equipment.” With a new airport master plan in place and many charter and aircraft management companies stretched to their limits in existing hangars, Van Nuys is undergoing a growth spurt of new construction. In addition to the Skytrails project, new hangars and office space are in the works for The Air Group and TWC Aviation. Elite Aviation is wrapping up negotiations to build the first new FBO at the airport in decades, one that will provide additional jobs in positions from baggage handlers to professional management. “I can unequivocally say this is the largest investment in the Van Nuys airport in a long time,” said John Pearsall, program manager for the project and COO of Phoenix Fuel, a sister company to Elite Aviation. Although Bob Hope Airport in Burbank is primarily a commercial airfield, one of its main charter tenants Avjet Aviation is in the midst of the constructing itself a new hangar to house a large jet for one of its clients. So how to explain this flurry of activity adding hundreds of thousands of square feet of hangar space to local airports? Well, for one the industry is in a growth mode. A recent Federal Aviation Administration forecast states that business use of general aviation aircraft will grow at a higher rater than for a personal or sport use. Total turbine aircraft numbered just less than 25,000 for 2007, the study said and is forecast to grow to 28,212 by 2010 and 33,747 by 2015. The main hold-up, according to operators based at the airport, was approval of the Van Nuys Airport master plan that didn’t take place until January 2006. The master plan sets out the zoning and uses for airport property. “Once they did that, everyone knew where they could build,” said Harold Lee, owner of the Million Air facility at Van Nuys. “There was a hesitancy on the part of some tenants to go ahead with improvements until all the land use designations had been finalized,” added airport Director Selena Birk. “They hadn’t been building although they had been planning several of them for several years.” Clay Lacy, the godfather of corporate aviation at Van Nuys, said that in his 40 years at the airport he has not seen this amount of activity for hangar and office space. If all the planned hangars are built, the amount of space with outpace the number of existing corporate jets now at the airport to fill them, said Lacy, who founded Clay Lacy Aviation in 1968. “I don’t know how long it will take to catch up,” Lacy said. “Maybe five to 10 years, but it will catch up at some point.” The multiple projects are currently in the permitting, demolition or pre-construction phases although by summer’s end expect visible evidence of building. Million Air broke ground this month on the first phase of a multi-year, $45 million project on 20 acres. The 18,000-square-foot, two-story office building and 43,000 square foot hangar has been leased to TWC Aviation, which is moving to Van Nuys from Bob Hope Airport. Receiving building permits from the city took longer than anticipated and delayed what the company had hoped to be an August move, said TWC Aviation President Andrew Richmond. The move is necessitated by running out of space in Burbank plus, the Million Air property was an attractive place to go, Richmond said. “It is more desirable place for business jets because they are not competing with the commercial traffic,” Richmond said. The Air Group and Avjet are also in the permitting stage for their respective projects. The Air Group will lease a new 86,000-square-foot hangar and 13,000-square foot office building now under construction on nine acres at Woodley Avenue and Daily Drive that had once been a Piper aircraft facility. Avjet will construct its new facility on three parcels in the 3000 block of Clybourn Avenue at Bob Hope Airport. The 57,000-square-foot hangar will house a 737 Boeing Business Jet owned by Shangri La Entertainment, a motion picture production company. The new building will also include 12,383 square feet of office space. Elite will build its new FBO on nearly eight acres of the old Jet Center property it acquired in bidding against other aviation firms. That the property was put up for bid may have sparked a renewed interest in building at the airport, Pearsall said. “Our competitors in the bidding process felt compelled to look for additional property,” Pearsall said. “I think they’ve gone into some interesting partnerships since then.”
