COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Colorado Springs Airport officials used incentives valued at more than $300,000 a year to help persuade Frontier Airlines to build its heavy maintenance hangar here, The Gazette reported in Sunday editions.
The hangar would bring 225 high-paying jobs to Colorado Springs and the potential for more flights. Service to Denver is expected to begin by late spring.
“This is certainly the biggest and the most important aviation development in Colorado Springs since” Western Pacific Airlines began operating here in the mid-1990s, said Mike Kazmierski, president of the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp.
The incentives offered to Frontier included rebates on all property taxes on the hangar and equipment in it, rebates on landing fees, and sales tax exemptions on aircraft parts and construction materials used in the hangar, plus extra revenue-sharing payments from the airport.
The city will issue tax-exempt bonds to finance construction of the estimated 100,000-square-foot, $25 million hangar, which is expected to open in 2009. Frontier would lease the hangar from the city for 30 years.
Airport managers worked with top city officials to develop the incentive package.
Frontier chose Colorado Springs for the hangar over its hub at Denver International Airport and five other Front Range airports because it offered “the best combination of incentives, financial support and proximity to our Denver hub,” Frontier President Sean Menke said.
City aviation manager Mark Earle said tax breaks are available to any airline that agrees to build a maintenance facility and also offer local passenger service. The landing fee rebates and extra revenue-sharing payments are available to airlines launching new local service.
Airport officials and business leaders are hoping to one day lure nonstop flights from Colorado Springs to New York, Orange County, Calif., and Washington, D.C.
Local air service, especially the lack of nonstop flights to East Coast cities, is among the top concerns raised by business executives looking at moving their operations to Colorado Springs, Kazmierski said.
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Information from: The Gazette,
