JACKSON COUNTY, IL (WSIL) -- Southern Illinois Airport is adding more than $25 million worth of new improvements, one of the airport's largest expansion projects in the last decade, and it's not the last.
Grants and private funding are attracting more aviation-businesses to the region with more than 500 jobs on the line, 150 expected within the next year.
Southern Illinois Airport manager Gary Shafer says, companies see the long-term value of a growing labor pool through Southern Illinois University's Aviation School next door.
"These new companies found an advantage in coming here," explains Shafer. "Not only because we were able to provide them space--funded by these new grants, but they also realize that there's a large labor pool here of talented young people that the university is producing."
Several large-scale projects have been under-way for the past year-and-a-half, they've constructed six new buildings, expanded two and installed a 14-acre solar farm.
"Total value about about $26 million," says Shafer. "And that added to what we've been spending in this decade has us spending about $110 million over the last ten years."
The SIU Aviation program and SI Airport have a "symbiotic" relationship, says Associate Professor of Aviation Technologies Karen Johnson. She says it is one thing for an instructor to try explaining the jobs available in the market, it is another to walk across the street where those jobs are waiting.
"It provides a whole lot of local opportunities for our students that upon graduation, if they want to stay local, they can," says Johnson.
The flight activity from the school provides an additional bragging right for the airport, ranking it the third busiest in the state, says Shafer.
"There's about 800 students that go to school out at the airport everyday," says Shafer. "The airport as a result of all this activity ranks number three now in the state of Illinois in terms of aviation activity."
Recreation and businesses outside aviation are taking notice of the site's developments with established businesses expanding, and new ones moving in. A medical marijuana cultivator expanding its footprint, as well as Yates Awning Company, and St. Nicholas Brewing Company, a Du Quoin business with three locations, is opening a pub with a view of the brew and the runway too.
The aircraft mechanics graduating from SIU in the Spring are likely to see new employers Galaxy Aviation and Crucial Aviation up and running. Construction on their properties are expected to be completed by fall. Johnson says she expects others in the industry to take notice and set up shop, which see says translates to more doors opening for SIU students.
"We certainly have a lot of hope that the industry that's coming in will attract more industry," says Johnson. "That would be our hope, that this is just the beginning."
SIU's School of Aviation is adding 12 new aircraft to its fleet, part of its commitment to expanding the services of its aviation program.
