This article originally comes from the Construction Forum on October 29, 2024
An aircraft management firm plans to open a new $1.5 million hangar at St. Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia.
Gateway Jets, which manages operations and services for private aviation, will soon start construction on the new 13,300-square-foot facility, which will hold five to six jet aircraft. The company’s existing hangar space is divided between the Metro East airport and Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield.
The addition is scheduled to be finished by Jan. 1, with construction work on the new hangar set to start around the second week of November, said Gateway Jets’ owner and CEO, Corey Tomczak. Site work already is underway.
St. Louis Downtown Airport is owned and operated by Bi-State Development, the St. Louis region’s transit agency. Gateway Jets has a 40-year land lease for the hangar site, Tomczak said.
One of the features of Gateway Jets’ new hangar is a private driveway next to a public parking area, giving clients the easiest possible access to the hangar, he said. Inside, the hangar will have Gateway Jets’ offices, a conference room, passenger lounge, bathrooms with showers and a kitchen, he said.
The company has been working on the project for nearly six years, navigating complicated lease lines at an undeveloped plot of green space at the airport, Tomczak said. The site of the new hangar adjoins property leased by Saint Louis University’s Parks College aviation program, and in order to develop it, Gateway Jets had to meet distance requirements from that area while also designing the new hangar to be sizable enough to fit jets with clearance inside, he said.
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