Groundbreaking for Boeing maintenance facility at Cecil Airport on pace to begin this fall

Groundbreaking for Boeing maintenance facility at Cecil Airport on pace to begin this fall (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Work on one of the biggest capital projects in the history of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority took another step forward this week.

JAA’s board of directors approved a budget Monday that featured $145 million in capital projects for a new Boeing maintenance facility at Cecil Airport. To date, $8.9 million has been spent on design and pre-construction of the facility.

Later this year, the authority will go out to the capital markets for funding for the project. Already, though, it has started the process of buying the structural steel that will be needed.

Groundbreaking on the facility is slated for October. The project is expected to be completed in early 2023.

Design for the Boeing facility is 60% complete. JAA’s Chief Development Officer Jay Cunio said the remaining design work is adding specificity to the project. According to documents presented to JAA’s board, the design is expected to be finalized in June.

Before that takes place, JAA CFO Ross Jones said he wants to close on the financing for the project. The airport plans to issue a request for proposals related to the financing in July, Jones told the Business Journal.

The authority is looking for $145 million to pay for a project that will feature a 270,000-square-foot hangar as well as more than 100,000 square feet of office and support shop space on the northeast portion of Cecil Airport.

“They are still in design of the project, so we don’t know what the final cost number is,” Jones said. “But we expect it to be $145 (million) or less – unless Boeing wants more improvements. If it’s over $145 million, we have to come back to the board. We can choose to put in cash in the deal, but it really depends where the project ends up.”

To accommodate for rising steel costs, the board approved a $20 million fund transfer from a quartet of projects – including its now-on-hold Concourse B project — to the Boeing Maintenance Project to purchase steel.

Staff estimated that doing so now, instead of the 2022 fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, will save the authority approximately $780,000 — although it does introduce some limitations when it comes to changing the design of the structure.

“Because we are purchasing the steel now, it limits the amount of design changes we can make moving forward,” Cunio said. “If we wanted to bump out a portion of the building or reconfigure a section, we’ve already committed to the structure because the steel has been purchased. It doesn’t mean you can’t deviate, but it would mean you would have to go back and redesign and procure the steel to do that piece.”

As steel prices rise, so does the authority’s excitement over a project that will also give the authority additional space to lease once the new facility comes online.

Mid-December may be the period when things began to turn around for Jacksonville’s aviation industry.

Within a seven-day period, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first Covid-19 vaccines; Jacksonville International Airport secured a non-stop flight to Los Angeles and the authority approved a lease with Boeing that would see the airplane manufacturer expand its operations in Jacksonville and create 350 new jobs.

“I’ve seen some of the early renderings of the building itself and it’s absolutely beautiful,” said JAA CEO Mark VanLoh. “It’s eight football fields long. …I can just think of all the workers there and all the aircraft there and all the other ancillary businesses we think are going to come to Jacksonville to help Boeing.

“It’s beginning. People will look back on this lousy year we had. They will also look back on the Boeing deal.”

Photo courtesy of Business Week