As seen in the July/August 2003 issue of Government West Magazine
While major urban airports receive most of the media attention in discussions of air transportation issues, smaller regional airports are playing an increasingly important role in serving regional air traffic, particularly corporate passengers.
A prime example of the growth of this franchise is Sugar Land Regional Airport,
30,000-square-foot terminal featuring such upgraded features as conference rooms, pilots’ lounges, additional on-site car rental facilities, a restaurant, and a data and communications center. The proposed terminal and amenity upgrades are projected for completion in 2005.
located 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston. The fourth largest such facility in the greater Houston area, Sugar Land has witnessed increases in operations of 300% since the City of Sugar Land purchased the facility in 1990. In fact, by 2001, the airport had already exceeded its projected air traffic goal for 2015, with corporate air traffic growing by some 30% annually during 1999 to 2001. Even after September 11, 2001, corporate traffic continued to rise by 15% per year. Now, the airport is on the verge of becoming busier yet.
An Upgraded Air Terminal
The City of Sugar Land recently announced that Sugar Land Regional Airport will build a new, larger airport terminal with enhanced amenities to serve the needs of the facility’s growing number of corporate aviation users. Airport officials and Pierce Goodwin Alexander Linville, the architectural firm selected for the project, are in the process of creating the conceptual design for the new terminal.
Over the past three years, the number of corporate aircraft using Sugar Land Regional Airport has steadily increased. It is the airport’s goal to accommodate this growth by creating a more comfortable, convenient, and amenable destination for corporate tenants and transit customers.
Officials from the City of Sugar Land and the Sugar Land Airport are anticipating the design of a 30,000-square-foot terminal featuring upgraded amenities such as conference rooms, pilots' lounges, additional on-site car-rental facilities and a data and communications center. The proposed terminal and amenity upgrades are projected for completion in 2005.
The General Aviation Center
Another significant project currently underway is the development of a new general aviation center, the largest single project undertaken to date by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Aviation Division. The project includes a new concrete apron, two bridge taxiways to cross existing oxbow lakes, aircraft tie-downs, t-hangars, executive hangars, a self-fueling facility, a public park, and a proposed vintage aircraft museum.
TxDOT, acting as agent for the City of Sugar Land, negotiated the purchase of 66 acres of land along State Highway 6 for use by this new facility. The project was funded with discretionary funds from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which the airport secured through the recently enacted airport improvements program bill, largely through the efforts of U.S. Rep Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The project was funded on a 90/10 basis with the FAA and will increase the size of the airport to more than 422 acres.
The general aviation center will consolidate all general aviation-related businesses on the field (a flight school, an avionics shop, and the aircraft mechanic) and replace all existing 20-plus-year-old t-hangars with new t-hangars
“The airport exceeded its projected traffic goals 14 years ahead of schedule.”
with electric bi-fold doors. Throughout the project, Sugar Land Regional Airport, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and TxDOT have worked together to mitigate effects on surrounding wetlands, with the airport funding the restoration of wetlands in the Brazos Bend State Park.
A History of Improvements
The Sugar Land Regional Airport’s success in the corporate aviation market is the result in large part of an ambitious capital improvements program that has given top priority to safety enhancements. During the past three years, more than $6 million in airport improvements have been completed. As a result, the airport today accommodates the largest business jets, such as the Gulfstream V and the Global Express, supported by a state-of-the-art air traffic control tower and radar system, a sophisticated instrument landing system, high-intensity lighting, and a reinforced concrete runway measuring 100 feet wide by 8,000 feet long.
Because Sugar Land Regional Airport is the fourth-largest facility in the greater Houston area and the only major general aviation reliever airport in the area’s southwest quadrant, airport improvements and facility upgrades are viewed as crucial for development within the City of Sugar Land as well as the Houston metropolitan area. These upgrades, in fact, could not be more timely. In the coming year, the number of Sugar Land-based corporate clients is expected to rise sharply as approximately 750,000 square feet of Class-A office space opens in Sugar Land Town Square, a $200million, mixed-use, public-private development that will be located within five miles of the airport.
It is a good bet that these tenants, along with Sugar Land’s existing corporate clients, will come to rely even more heavily on the upgraded Sugar Land Regional Airport in the years ahead.
Phillip Savko is Aviation Director of the Sugar Land Regional Airport and can be reached at (281) 275-2400. For more information, log on to www.sugarlandtx.gov and click on “City Services” and then “Airport.”