Drone friendly: City may apply for grant to fund facility at Powell airport

Posted 11/17/16

On Monday, the Powell City Council will consider seeking a roughly $434,000 state grant to help fund construction of a light-industrial manufacturing facility at the Powell Municipal Airport. The hope is for GT Aeronautics, a drone manufacturer, to …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Drone friendly: City may apply for grant to fund facility at Powell airport

Posted

A new project may soon take flight at the Powell Municipal Airport.

On Monday, the Powell City Council will consider seeking a roughly $434,000 state grant to help fund construction of a light-industrial manufacturing facility at the Powell Municipal Airport. The hope is for GT Aeronautics, a drone manufacturer, to lease the new 3,000-square-foot facility.

“It’s a really exciting project,” said Christine Bekes, executive director of Powell Economic Partnership. “Our goal will be to house GT Aeronautics while they develop their business model in this emerging market. If you can imagine, the market is in its pretty early stages and growing so fast.”

GT Aeronautics started in California 14 years ago and relocated to the Cody/Powell area earlier this year. The new facility would allow the company to manufacture, test and fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at the Powell airport.

“There aren’t many airports — definitely none in Wyoming — that are what I’d consider UAV-friendly,” Bekes said Wednesday.

“The Powell airport will really be the first airport in the state to jump into this arena,” Bekes said. “It’s important timing to be at the table, because the industry is so young, that it will really help put Wyoming on the map in this industry.”

That’s not to say the UAV industry doesn’t exist in Wyoming or Park County, Bekes added. GDA Engineers and Simplot are two examples of local businesses currently using drones; along with GT Aeronautics, they participated in a drone forum in Powell in August.

“To take it to an industrial and commercial level, with an airport engaged, is significant,” Bekes said.

The Powell council will consider on Monday whether to apply for a roughly $434,000 grant through the Wyoming Business Council’s Community Readiness Program. The overall project is roughly $530,000, and the city would provide its matching funds through in-kind services.

A major part of the project is infrastructure at the site — such as extending electric and fiber optic lines to the site and paving a short access road. In addition, the project also calls for installing a 6,000-gallon cistern for water. That would increase the capacity for water on site to 11,000 gallons, which allows for firefighting capabilities, Bekes said.

“The building itself isn’t the main part of the cost,” she said.

The City of Powell would own the facility and lease it to GT Aeronautics or other aeronautical businesses.

“They will then bring the expertise and knowledge to help our airport get the special certification to make it, what I would call in layman’s terms, a ‘UAV-friendly airport,’” Bekes said.

Bekes added that the light industrial manufacturing facility wouldn’t be specific to just GT Aeronautics, and said the project could drive other development at the Powell airport.

“The Powell Economic Partnership could then work with the city on recruitment of other potential UAV operators to be based out of the airport,” Bekes said. “So maybe it will be the initial start of some other development up there ... it’s another opportunity for the airport to generate revenue, which is hugely significant and contributes to economic development.”

Bekes said the drone industry is expected to have an $80 billion economic impact in the United States. It is expected to create more than 100,000 jobs through 2025, according to a 2013 study by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

Locally, the manufacturing facility is expected to create several jobs in manufacturing and technology.

“Our goal would be that this facility spurs the creation of three to five jobs within the next five years,” Bekes said.

If the Powell City Council moves forward with the grant application Monday, the application will be sent to the Wyoming Business Council by Dec. 1 for staff review. It will then be considered at the Wyoming Business Council’s meeting in March and will go before the State Loan and Investment Board in April.

“Ideally, we would break ground in May or June on this,” Bekes said. The projected completion date is December 2017.

The Powell City Council’s public hearing on the project begins at 6:05 p.m. Monday.

Comments