Gulfstream Bets Big on DFW
Gulfstream Aerospace will invest more than $35 million to build a nearly 160,000-square-foot maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at Fort Worth Alliance Airport which will complement its presence at Love Field.
FORT WORTH—To help meet the needs of its growing customer fleet, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. will invest more than $35 million to build a nearly 160,000-square-foot maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at Fort Worth Alliance Airport. The building, which will complement Gulfstream’s presence at Dallas Love Field, is expected to open by fall 2021 and create approximately 50 new jobs.
The facility will include hangar space, back shops, and employee and customer offices. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the third quarter of 2020.
Approximately 150 to 200 of Gulfstream’s 230 customer support employees at Love Field are expected to relocate to Alliance about 35 miles away, while about 30 to 80 employees will remain at Love Field to continue to provide on-site and transient operators with maintenance and service. Gulfstream’s mid-cabin aircraft completions business in Dallas, which includes about 350 employees and five hangars, will remain at Love Field.
“Alliance Airport is a great location,” said Derek Zimmerman, president of Gulfstream customer support. “It is an established airport for business aviation operators, has an outstanding infrastructure and is appropriately sized for our operations. It is also the home of a growing aviation school, which will help us continue to develop both new and existing employees. The additional maintenance capacity we can provide at Alliance, the state-of-the-art facility and substantial job creation are great news for our customers, our employees and the community.”
The 163,500-square-foot Tarrant County College Erma C. Johnson Hadley Northwest Campus Center of Excellence for Aviation, Logistics and Transportation at Alliance is home to a Federal Aviation Administration-approved maintenance program.
Gulfstream opened maintenance facilities last year in Appleton, WI; Savannah, GA and Van Nuys, CA, and will open two more centers this year in Palm Beach, FL and Farnborough, England. The company’s in-service fleet is more than 2,900 aircraft worldwide. More than 50 Gulfstream aircraft are based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“The largest of our new maintenance facilities that we have opened or will open in 2019 to 2021 will be the one in Farnborough, England. It is expected to be open for business in June or July 2020 and will be approximately 220,000 square feet,” Sean Coughlin, media relations specialist with Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., tells GlobeSt.com. “What’s unique about the Fort Worth Alliance Airport is its two 11,000-foot runways, it’s in the path of high-end corporate development, i.e. Schwab, Deloitte, Facebook, and it’s near amenities in Grapevine and Southlake.”
Alliance Airport is part of AllianceTexas, a 26,000-acre development in northeast Fort Worth and home to more than 500 companies. Alliance, the site of major Amazon and FedEx shipping operations, was considered the country’s first industrial airport when it opened in 1989. More than 300 flights a day come in and out of the airport including business jets, military, cargo and general aviation traffic.
“As one of the world’s most respected aerospace companies, Gulfstream becomes part of Fort Worth’s storied history of aviation and aerospace innovation,” said Mike Berry, president of Hillwood, developer of AllianceTexas. “Their expansion here will allow them to leverage specialized area aviation training programs and provide them with access to a sizable talented workforce in a unique environment that fosters further growth.”
The US industrial market closed 2019 on a positive note with no tangible signs of a slowdown in tenant demand, according to a report by JLL. Traditional big-box markets such as Chicago, Dallas, Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, and Atlanta ranked as the top markets for new deliveries and leasing activity, says JLL.