CBP signs lease for aviation center

The Yuma County Airport Authority has finalized a 40-year, $16 million lease with U.S. Customs and Border Protection that will result in a new facility for the Homeland Security agency's air crews.

“Years of hard work went into making this lease a reality,” Bill Gresser, authority president, said in a news release. "And we are absolutely thrilled that it is a done deal."

The airport submitted an unsolicited proposal in 2007 to initiate the effort by highlighting the availability of land within the airport's expansive Defense Contractor Complex on the west side of the airport, explained Gen Grosse, the airport authority's corporate account manager.

"The Air and Marine Division outgrew their current airport lease long ago," Grosse said, referring to the existing lease between the authority and CBP that started in 1999.

"Since then, new aircraft and a larger work force have squeezed into that tiny space."

The new lease is for a state-of-the-art aircraft maintenance center on 8.5 acres, consisting of two new hangars and a separate aviation parts storage facility to be housed in the renovated Roscoe Turner Building. The aviation center will also have an aircrew operations center.

"The CBP pilots here play such a critical role for the security of our border, and their mission has grown so much over the past decade," Grosse said. “This allows them plenty of room to continue their air operations in the safest conditions, while allowing for expansion of maintenance and support facilities.”

To make the project happen, the airport agreed to sign on as the project manager to develop the aviation center.

Last fall, the airport authority was awarded a contract to design the new facility, which will be based in large part on the hangar the airport built for NASA. The design work was subcontracted to Nicklaus Engineering, a local engineering and architectural firm that also designed the NASA hangar.

With the lease now in place, construction can proceed on the center once the nearly finished design work is completed, said Craig Williams, airport manager. He anticipates construction could start this summer on the approximately $11 million project to be funded by the CBP.

"It's probably an 11-month project, so by early summer of 2011, they should be in the new facility.

"They needed a new aviation complex," Williams said. "We partnered with them. We found out their need and helped them execute it. Because of the partnership, it will be less expensive to build, it will happen faster."

And it will be well tuned to their needs "because we talk on a daily basis," Williams said.