Business View Magazine | August 2019

129 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 THE COLORADO SPR INGS A I RPORT when it was built. We have a bit more work to do on the first floor, but we’re getting through that.” Going forward, Phillips says that Colorado Springs could have some new tenants, soon, as well. “We’re hoping to have an Airframe and Power Plant (A&P) mechanic and trade school at the Airport,” he says. “Spartan Technical College submitted for FAA review and potential approval, and we’re hoping, by this fall, to have students in the program. Another thing we’re hoping to have under contract, very soon, is a hotel on Airport property. We think that’s a great use; it certainly helps the community outside of Colorado Springs. If you’re coming up from northern New Mexico, or western Kansas, or Oklahoma, or Trinidad, Colorado, you can spend the night before your early morning flight and not have to do that drive at three in the morning.” Growth is also taking place at the Airport’s business park. Phillips explains, “The real exciting news is that Amazon is constructing a building, now, that it hopes to have opened by September - a 67,000-sq.-ft., last-mile, distribution center - in the Airport business park. There was an awful lot of innovative work to make that happen, because a consortium of partners – the Airport, the utility company, and Amazon and its partners - put about $8.4 million in infrastructure – wet and dry utilities, water, sewer, gas, electric, etc. - to be able to build that facility, and to continue to open up the business park and make it easier for developers for additional construction and development. “To make that work, we established a ‘metro district,’ in the business park. I’ve never heard of another airport doing that. It allows the members of the metro district to vote a mill levy that will allow repayment of the money over time. So, the Airport put money into it, and it will get its money back over time through the mill levy. For us, that was an absolutely genius arrangement that helps us make the investment and helps the tenants get into the property. “Having the first domino - the Amazon facility - fall in the business park, we’re already seeing pretty intense interest in additional sites there. That’s exciting because, since 2006, when they first established the business park, nothing happened for years and years, and now, with some of this latest work, it’s starting to go gangbusters. We’re talking to gas stations, convenience stores, a fast- food chain; so the dominoes are falling quickly.” Phillips explains that the Airport has a very Experience new horizons, every day paradieslagardere.com A proud partnership: Colorado Springs Airport and Paradies Lagardère