The good news at the North Central West Virginia Airport isn’t just limited to flight operations. Late last month, one of the aerospace companies at the complex filed for a near $1 million building permit, according to the City of Bridgeport.

 

Bridgeport Community Development Director Andrea Kerr confirmed that Aurora Flight Sciences filed a building permit for $786,547.

 

“They’re doing an addition with some concrete work,” said Kerr. “I guess you would call it a small addition because they’re not adding any offices, but that sounds like I’m discounting what they’re doing. I’m not because the space they’re adding is for additional machinery and that’s a good thing.”

 

The addition covers 833 square feet. The space to handle the addition was designed by WYK Architects out of Clarksburg. The contractor is Marks-Landau.

 

“This, to me, says Aurora plans on sticking around and it could mean with additional machinery that new jobs could open up for the local community or require people to move here to fill those jobs,” said Kerr. “When something like this happens, no matter the scale, there is a trickle down that is extremely

 

Kerr said many people aren’t aware of the massive aerospace industry that exists in the city. Recently, the NCWV Airport commissioned an economic impact study that showed the aerospace entities and the airport had a $1 billion-plus impact on the region.

 

“The good news is this is likely the first of many future additions and renovations to aerospace companies within the next year, and the business platform could grow,” said Kerr. “I’ve talked with officials at the airport and officials involved with airport property who keep me apprised of economic development activities and they’ve assured me companies from countries across the world, such as Japan, are looking to locate in Bridgeport.”

 

According to the company’s Web site, the West Virginia location in Bridgeport focuses on “the design, building and printing of aerostructure components utilizing lean aerospace manufacturing techniques and technologies. The West Virginia facility is the center of Aurora’s composite manufacturing work for military aircraft, with the RQ-4 Global Hawk/Triton and the CH-53K King Stallion providing the foundation. In addition, the facility is also the production base for numerous composite airframe parts of the Bell 525 helicopter.”

 

Aurora has been in West Virginia since 1994. The facility, the Web site states, covers 125,000 square feet between three buildings.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo shows Community Development Director Andrea Kerr looking over Aurora's plans, while the bottom photo (from the company's Web site) shows an aerial view of the Bridgeport location.