Gary airport launches project to expand cargo infrastructure

Airport, state and federal officials participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for the first phase of that project, totaling approximately $24 million, to install a jet fuel pipeline to service large-capacity storage tanks, expand and upgrade the airport’s sanitary sewer system and create a new cargo logistics apron and de-icing facility that will ultimately accommodate eight air cargo planes for concurrent operations at the airport.

“We could not be more excited to see this project take form,” said Dan Vicari, the airport’s executive director, at an event held at the site of the project on the northwest end of the airfield. 

The project is being funded by just over $10 million in federal Community Project Funding from the 2023 and 2024 federal budgets. Roughly $2 million of the CPF funds are dedicated to the sanitary sewer enhancements to be constructed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The remaining CPF funding is dedicated to the cargo logistics apron.

The project also includes $4.33 million in funding from the Federal Aviation Administration and $9.82 million provided by the State of Indiana.

The airport’s large-scale cargo operations began in late 2022 when UPS began flying in.

“We have two positions in this airport that can accommodate that size of an airplane,” Vicari said. Gesturing to undeveloped land north of the airfield edge, he said “you see roughly 100 acres of property that’s being primed for an air cargo complex that will ultimately accommodate 18 wide-body airplanes.” 

Vicari said the fuel pipeline would help make the fueling operation more efficient. 

“Right now, we truck every gallon of fuel that comes to this airport — our FBOs do that,” he said, referring the fixed-base operators Gary Jet Center and B. Coleman Aviation. “Once we have this infrastructure in place, we will no longer be required to truck that fuel.”

Other speakers at the groundbreaking included Millicent Macon, secretary of the Gary/Chicago International Airport Authority; Matt Saltanovitz, vice president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.; Marcus Dial, state aviation director with the Indiana Department of Transportation; Col. Kenneth Rockwell, Chicago District commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is managing the sanitary sewer project; and U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland.

Mrvan called the airport an “economic engine,” that provides “connectivity to the rest of the world and United States, saying Northwest Indiana is ready for business.”

Other current projects at the airport include construction of a new corporate hangar and renovations at the terminal in anticipation of an expected return of commercial service.