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DRS to double its hangar space, add 100 jobs at airport

Nov 14, 2007 - Aircraft overhauler DRS Technologies is planning a major expansion at Elizabeth City Aviation Research and Development Commerce Park that will double its hangars space and add 100 new jobs over two years.

Two years ago, DRS built an 80,000-square-foot hangar large enough to house four C-130 Hercules aircraft at a cost of $20 million. DRS now employs 203 workers at that facility - 130 from Pasquotank and 20 from Camden County. Now DRS wants to build a second hangar of similar size. The 100 new jobs resulting from the expansion are projected to pay an average wage of $22.38 an hour with a full complement of benefits. The lowest paying jobs at the new facility will pay $13 an hour. Sixty of those jobs will be filled by workers of low- to moderate-income as required by the CDBG grant.

The DRS expansion bodes well for the aviation park's strategy of building on the business model pioneered by DRS: leveraging relationships between the U.S. Coast Guard and its private-sector contractors to attract cutting-edge aviation and aerospace operations to the Elizabeth City area.

The $10.4-million aviation-park includes a taxiway across Consolidated Road to four planned hangars on 63 acres acquired for the first phase of the park. Phase One also includes 20 acres for training and education facilities for Elizabeth City State University and the College of the Albemarle.

Project costs include $3.8 million for the taxiway extension; $1.3 million for new streets, sidewalks, curb and gutter and stormwater upgrades and $1 million for a new sewer main, manholes and pumping station. The CDBG grant would pay for water and sewer upgrades at the aviation park. The city obtained a similar $500,000 CDBG grant for water and sewer improvements to accommodate DRS’s first hangar.
Last year, the North Carolina Department of Commerce awarded $3.5 million toward the project from its Economic Development Reserve Fund. Besides the anticipated $1 million from CDBG, the project is slated to garner $2 million in Golden LEAF funds, $500,000 in state Industrial Development funds and $500,000 from the N.C. Rural Center. DRS will contribute $1.85 million to the project.

The project's partners include the city, Pasquotank County, the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County Regional Airport Authority and the Albemarle Economic Development Commission.

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