VIENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Board members of the Western Reserve Port Authority joined personnel from the Youngstown/Warren Regional Airport Thursday evening to open the second Tee hangar to house single-engine aircraft.
Construction began after the first of the three planned Tee hangars was completed about three years ago.
“We had site remediation to start with. This was a dumpsite at one point. We had to clean that up,” Jack Sullivan began. “We used airport funds to build the hangar. We had to commit to the building after the first one was built three years ago.” Sullivan is superintendent of maintenance and operations for the airport.
Of the 14 bays in the hangar, only one is without a lessee as of last night. When the first hangar was completed, all 14 bays had been leased.
“We just got this entire string of hangars up and they're almost full already, which is amazing. It speaks to the demand for hangar space and that people want their planes at Youngstown/Warren Regional Airport,” said the executive director of the port authority, John Moliterno. “We're excited about it but we're more excited for the fact that it's about full and we can start thinking about building the next one.”
Adding a second -- and eventually third -- hangar to the airport will help diversify the types of aircraft coming in and out, the director of aviation, Dan Dickten, said.
“This brings in a new base of aircraft for the airport. It also right-sizes the aircraft that are currently in some of the larger hangars here,” he said. “They'll fit better in these and by getting them out of the big hangars, it opens up space for bigger aircraft. That's always a much better payoff.”
Those who fly for fun have leased most of the bays, Dickten said, pointing to the variety of groups that lease space in the hangar.
“It's a little bit of everything. There's small businesses. There's two flight clubs, a maintenance operation, but it’s mainly general private aviation pilots,” Dickten said.
With two hangars added in the past three years, the possibilities are many for Youngstown/Warren Regional Airport when it comes to small aircraft, Moliterno said.
“People are getting more comfortable using this facility,” he said. “That's what we want to encourage. We want this airport to be as easy to use as possible and grant them the access they need to be able to get as much activity as we can.”
Pictured at the ribbon-cutting are, from left: Don Johnson, Patrick Pellin, Martin Loney, Ken Kubala,Sam Covelli, Neil Gallagher, David Mosure, John Moliterno, Dan Dickten and Jack Sullivan.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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