Smaller airports across the state are spending big to upgrade service, experience

Small airports across the state are making sizable investments in facilities and infrastructure as more companies lean on them for operational needs.

At least six regional, municipal and county airports in Indiana are expanding or replacing their terminal buildings or improving their runways. Several others are weighing renovations and upgrades that are expected to take shape over several years.

As international airports in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne sink tens of millions—or in Indianapolis’ case, hundreds of millions—of dollars into improving the commercial traveler experience, airports in Bloomington, Warsaw and Richmond are focused on private travelers and charter flights, which often serve as those facilities’ bread and butter.

Valerie Shaffer is president of the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County, a not-for-profit with whom Richmond and Wayne County officials contract to lead business attraction and retention efforts. She said the Richmond Municipal Airport plays an important role in helping businesses across east-central Indiana move their executives, clients and investors for meetings and other events.

For years, airport officials have sought to build support for a new terminal. The proposed project, expected to cost about $1.7 million, would offer more office space for staff, as well as larger public spaces and pilot amenities, including showers and bunks for overnight stays. The airport might also consider adding more hangar space in years to come.

The current Richmond terminal, constructed in the late 1940s, has never been identified as a problem for existing or prospective businesses, Shaffer said, but a new one could help create a good first impression among those travelers. In recent years, economic development officials have met corporate leaders at the airport for site visits, and other businesses fly investors in to evaluate properties.

The airport has been important, she said, to several big economic development deals for the county in the past decade, including both the initial $150 million investment from Connecticut-based pet food company Blue Buffalo in 2016 and the subsequent $200 million expansion it announced last year. The airport also sees regular business from executives with Richmond Baking Co. and Primex Plastics.

Shaffer said most questions raised about the airport, particularly from prospective users, tend to be focused on the length of the runway, which is 5,500 feet. The runway can support larger private jets.

“Businesses appreciate the fact that we have the airport here,” she said. “But having a new, more modern terminal building would add a lot of appeal.”

To build a new terminal, Richmond plans to pursue a grant through the Federal Aviation Administration that would cover up to 90% of costs related to the terminal’s publicly accessible spaces. State and local matches would cover the remaining 10% (the city of Richmond could chip in, but the airport can cover the match if the city won’t). The airport would also be responsible for covering costs related to office space and other non-public areas and plans to tap into reserves to do so.

Richmond Municipal Airport is one of just a handful of municipal airports in the state that isn’t subsidized by tax dollars for operations; its proposed budget for 2025 is about $577,000.

Rodney Mayse, the airport’s manager, said the facility doesn’t see constant traffic but is a frequent fuel stop for small planes making longer journeys. It’s also home to a flight school and hosts several community events every year, including short flights showcasing Christmas lights across Richmond and into western Ohio.

He said he is hopeful the new terminal can be developed and constructed within five years. He is also seeking to upgrade one of the runways, which was last improved in 2010; the other was redone in 2021.

“This is the gateway to the city, but obviously the city [government] doesn’t have that kind of money laying around as they’re trying to put budgets together,” said Mayse, who has overseen the airport since 2006. “They definitely understand the need and desire for this, so we’re closer now than ever before to getting this goal achieved.”

Additional investments

Warsaw Airport is well into a $6.3 million utility configuration and extension of its main runway, and Huntington Municipal Airport is building a $3.3 million terminal.

Purdue University Airport expects to complete this fall an $11.8 million terminal that is replacing one built in 1943. Purdue also recently finished a $3 million repaving project on its crosswind runway.

Perhaps the most impactful investment Purdue has made in recent years is a partnership with the state that this spring brought commercial service between Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and West Lafayette back after a 20-year hiatus.

Adam Baxmeyer, director of the Purdue airport, told IBJ through email that “direct air service is essential” to the facility’s mission, as well as to helping companies across Tippecanoe County—including Caterpillar, Subaru and Saab—move their people.

He said the planned $4 billion investment by SK Hynix for a fabrication and research and development center for semiconductor packaging is also aided by the new route, which is operated by Southern Airways, a small commercial flight company that has agreements with American, United, Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines.

Beyond passenger travel, the airport also helps move manufacturing materials for the industries it supports, with runways capable of supporting small to midsize cargo jets.

“Everyone is keenly aware of supply chain disruptions,” Baxmeyer said. “Our airport helps keep the supply chain moving and factories humming.”

Mark Wasky is senior vice president and special counsel to the Indiana secretary of commerce in the Indiana Economic Development Corp. The state’s business procurement and retention agency, the IEDC has played a role in supporting the Lafayette project as well as others across the state.

He said the work the IEDC has done alongside Purdue on its terminal improvements and commercial flight efforts is likely to “lead to more corporate investment in the community.”

The IEDC is employing tools, including the Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, to help cover the costs of improvements at airports across the state. While some of those projects are for terminal updates, including an expansion in Fort Wayne, others are focused on infrastructure.

Wasky said communities of all sizes statewide have benefited from “the convenience and the quality of our state’s airports and the leadership that they’ve had, and the vision of creating high-quality terminals that are easy to get through.”

Likewise, the IEDC is working with Evansville, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis to establish additional flights.

In Evansville, officials earlier this year announced the return of a Chicago route, part of a $5 million incentive deal with American Airlines. And Indianapolis International Airport is continuing to work with the IEDC to relaunch trans-Atlantic service after a Delta route to Paris was canceled during the pandemic.

Exploring other avenues

In Bloomington, local leaders are considering how their plans for a $15 million terminal replacement at Monroe County Airport could go hand-in-hand with other development efforts

The proposed airport improvements are tied largely to activity at the Naval Support Activity Crane base about 40 minutes southwest of Bloomington, as well as continued growth of the Big Ten Conference and several ongoing efforts in sectors like microelectronics, medical devices and life sciences, said Jennifer Pearl, president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corp.

She said as part of those efforts, the Bloomington EDC is working closely with Monroe County Airport Director Carlos Laverty to identify opportunities to lease land that is currently used for farming and redevelop it into warehouses or manufacturing sites on the perimeter of the airport.

The Bloomington economic development group partnered with the airport to request READI 2.0 funds from the state to support utility connections at multiple sites near the airport, she said. Already, the property is used extensively by Cook Medical Group and numerous other Bloomington-area companies, as well as local, state and federal officials who have dealings at Crane.

Pearl said many Bloomington companies rely heavily on the airport for their operations and to move their executives.

“We always highlight the airport as an asset, … and it’s really uniquely positioned because we’re essentially a hub on the innovation corridor that runs from Indy to Crane,” Pearl said. “So, the airport is a connector to our key industries and works regularly with our life sciences companies and other industries in our area. So we always highlight it no matter what.”

For his part, Laverty said the effort to build a new terminal and make improvements to the property to better serve industry is a somewhat daunting task, but one he says is well worth the work—particularly if it presents opportunities to bring new companies, or grow existing ones, in Bloomington.

“When you have site selection committees and businesses that are already here, perhaps looking to expand, and people are flying in from their headquarters to take a look at Bloomington, we realize this is an opportunity for us to make that first impression, and I think we can do much better at that,” he said.

“So, $15 million—that’s a lot of money, and it’s going to take some creativity and a capital campaign at some point to make that happen. But we believe … it’s a worthwhile investment, not just to provide the services for aviation, but also for the community.”•