Indiana State Police will soon have a major presence in Greenwood.
The city has agreed to build a new airport hangar and office space at the Indy South Greenwood Airport that will be used by the state police aviation department.
Several aircrafts, including helicopters and small planes, will be housed at the hangar, which will be located south of the main hangar on the airport’s property off County Line Road and Emerson Avenue. The 12,000 square-foot hangar, which the city has agreed to build as part of a long-term lease agreement with ISP, will also include 4,000 square feet of office space for 12 to 20 state police employees, including a SWAT team.
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The Greenwood Redevelopment Commission agreed to spend nearly $1.2 million to build the hangar, which is expected to cost a total of $2.5 million. About $1.3 million is available from funds already dedicated to airport improvement projects, said Greg Wright, the city’s controller.
State police will lease the hangar from the city for about $5,000 a month. The initial lease is for six years, but both the city and ISP expect the partnership to extend beyond that, they said during Tuesday night’s redevelopment commission meeting.
The city will own and operate the hangar, which could be used by another client if ISP backs out or decides not to renew the lease in 2024. The city designed the lease to recapture the costs of building the hangar over about 48 years.
“We are not looking to make a profit on this project. The expected life of a building like this is, at minimum, 50 years,” Wright said.
“If, for some reason, ISP did not renew, we are confident that the facility would be an attractive option for other tenants — whether one tenant utilized the entire space, or it were split among multiple tenants.”
The lease will also capture $2,500 a year in maintenance costs, with the expectation that costs in early years will be lower, but will grow over time, he said.
Wright has said it is an investment for the city because it will increase fuel sales at the airport significantly and make the airport eligible for more grants. Eligibility is often based on the number of takeoffs and landings, he said.
City and airport officials have been in talks with ISP since June and would like to see the new hangar open by the end of spring.
ISP’s aviation department was located at the Indianapolis International Airport until 2014, when they entered into a four-year lease in Mount Comfort, east of Indianapolis. Officials considered extending that lease, but once they started looking at Greenwood as an option, it made the decision to move easy, ISP Superintendent Doug Carter said.
“Gosh, comparing the two, it was very simple to me,” Carter said.
The airport will serve as an ideal centralized location for the police force. From Greenwood, the aircrafts can get anywhere in Indiana in an hour or less, he said.
“There will be a lot of activity in and out of the airport,” Carter said.
ISP also chose Greenwood because of its close proximity to Interstate 65 and downtown Indianapolis.
“Top of the list is this is an ideal location with nearly all the infrastructure in place to meet our operational needs to serve not only state police aviation needs, but the needs of our law enforcement partners across the state,” Carter said in a news release. “Suffice it to say we are looking forward to our new aviation home and believe this is the beginning of a strong and enduring partnership with Greenwood and the airport.”
The redevelopment commission unanimously approved funding for the project.
“I think this is a great addition to the community in many different ways. We will have a state police presence here,” president Brent Tilson said.
It will be the largest of 87 hangars at the airport, eight of which are corporate hangars. It will be larger than the airport’s main hangar, which is 10,000 square feet.
“We look forward to serving as the home base for such a critical component of law enforcement services in Indiana,” Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers said.
