LOVELAND — Staff at the Northern Colorado Regional Airport on Thursday will recommend that the airport commission authorize negotiation with a company that would expand jet hangar operations at the airport while devising a plan to accommodate small, private planes that would be displaced by the jet hangar expansion.

The staff will recommend exclusive negotiations with Fort Collins/Loveland jetCenter Inc., the same company that prompted hangar discussions in early 2021.

At that time, jetCenter approached airport management with a proposal to spend $25 million to $30 million to expand its jet hangar operations. Staff negotiated a lease and brought it to the airport commission for approval. But the commission faced a buzzsaw of criticism from private, general-aviation operators at the airport, 60 of whom would be displaced by the jetCenter expansion. Those operators lease T-hangars at the facility; those hangars represent about 20% of the T-hangar rental space available to small operators at the regional airport. The airport commission was told at the time about shortages of rental space for small operators along the Front Range. 

Instead of approving the lease, the commission directed staff to solicit multiple proposals to build improved jet hangars while also creating options for tenants displaced by redevelopment. 

Three companies responded, and staff selected jetCenter’s revised proposal to recommend to the board.

Information in the commission’s packet for Thursday’s meeting said that the recommendation is based upon the rental rate that jetCenter offered to pay, the timetable for when rent would begin to be paid, jetCenter’s willingness to help with a relocation strategy for the T-hangar tenants, and the site plan for jetCenter’s expansion that would permit phased displacement of the T-hangar tenants.

How the timing of jetCenter expansion and T-hangar replacement fit together was not clear in the documents provided to the commission.

The commission meets 3:30 p.m. Thursday at the airport.