If all goes according to plan, a new gas station should be up and running at Yellowstone Regional Airport next summer.

Nearly a year ago, the airport’s board agreed to lease a 4-acre chunk of land to an affiliate of Essential Fuels, which will build and operate a new convenience store and Sinclair-affiliated gas station on the property. The site is located in front of the former commercial airport terminal, just off U.S. Highway 14/16/20.

Construction is now fully underway after the project cleared reviews by the City of Cody. The facility will include a 6,530 square foot convenience store, five double-sided fuel stations for cars and trucks plus four double-sided stations for semis. Four underground tanks that will store up to 80,000 gallons worth of fuel, according to planning documents.

Though there was some pushback, the YRA board signed a 20-year lease of the property to generate additional revenue. Through a Nebraska-based company, 26 Group, LLC, the gas station will pay YRA $32,000 a year; starting in the sixth year of the deal, rent will increase annually to keep up with inflation.

YRA Executive Director Aaron Buck said the facility is expected to be finished sometime in June.

The airport is also continuing to pursue more opportunities: YRA recently sent board member Dan Schein to the Airport Development & Investment Conference conference in Los Angeles to tout YRA as a spot for business development.

“It's great to see that this board is getting out and soliciting potential revenue sources for the airport versus, you know, waiting for the phone to ring,” board member Josh White said at a Wednesday meeting, “because the phone may never ring.”

The airport’s assets include a business park on its eastern edge that’s mostly vacant. Two of the five lots are owned by the Wyoming National Guard, and Buck said the board should consider repurchasing those 10 acres. He said he’d like to offer all five lots “as one package deal to a developer for a nice big project.”

When potential buyers call and ask what might happen with the lots owned by the National Guard, Buck said his current answer is, “we don’t know.”

“... and people [are] kind of hesitant to invest in something [when] they don’t know who’s their neighbor going to be and what they’re going to build,” he said.

Buck indicated that repurchasing lots could be expensive and the board didn’t make any decisions.

The Powell City Council has similarly also expressed interest in encouraging businesses to set up shop at the Powell Municipal Airport north of town. At an August council meeting, the owner of a Colorado-based firearm parts maker, Checkmate Tactical Manufacturing, said he’s interested in moving his operations to the Powell airport.

Buck told his board in September that the company hadn’t reached out to YRA.