Aug. 21—In less than a year, 105 acres at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport will be ready and waiting to be the new home for any number of companies in the aerospace industry.
As crews work to complete the infrastructure necessary to make the site shovel-ready, nearby technical colleges are simultaneously working to finalize programs to train the site's future workforce.
Local, state and federal partners of this planned industrial park were on site Monday for a groundbreaking ceremony.
Jina Belcher, New River Gorge Regional Development Authority (NRGRDA) executive director, said much of the 105 acres of previously heavily wooded area, has already been cleared and should be ready for developers in eight months.
"Right now, we are actively marketing the sites for recruitment," Belcher said. "So we're working with the West Virginia Development Office and other partners, our utility providers, to be able to market these sites to aerospace companies, both domestic and foreign to be able to locate in the region."
When site preparations are complete, Belcher said it will be the only unclaimed "site ready" property in the state.
"That's huge because before you would have to wait for a prospect or a company to come before you could build out that infrastructure and so having it ready just means that we're going to expedite that job creation and expedite that tax revenue into the county," Belcher said.
She added that the site has the potential to house up to six companies, depending on their size, and create 638 jobs.
Some of these jobs will likely be filled by students from the New River Community and Technical College, which has a campus in Beaver a few miles from the airport, as well as West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley.
New River President Bonny Copenhaver said the school recently purchased a hangar at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport for its new aviation mechanics program.
She added that the college's efforts have been aided by the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College System, the American Electric Power Foundation and other investors.
"We've been able to start buying some equipment, hiring a program director and getting everything in place," Copenhaver said. "I'm just waiting for the money to be able to renovate the (hangar). We've already bought a couple of airplanes that are going to be delivered in the next few weeks. So we're gearing up as quickly as we can."
Copenhaver said she hopes to get the aviation program off the ground by the fall of 2024. She said the initial program will have space for 20-25 students.