Port eyes business growth at Bellingham International Airport, surrounding areas

Projects focusing on the aeronautical and manufacturing sectors should be prioritized when considering the future of business growth at and surrounding Bellingham International Airport.

That’s the consensus after a three-hour meeting between Port of Bellingham Commission members and staff on Tuesday, April 1. The work group is part of a series of meetings commissioners are holding to develop long-term visions for the port’s role in BLI’s future.

Part of the discussion focused on ways for businesses already at the airport to engage with one another.

Lyle Jansma, founder of Six Pack Aero, an aviation consulting company, said he’d like to see the airport business park support general aviation and growing aeronautical business.

“There’s a lot of small little shops that I think could be supported if the airport would look at the small shops, much like commercial fishermen have access to different resources at the port,” he said.

While Jansma represented aeronautical business, there are other manufacturing tenants who lease space at the business park, such as carbon fiber parts for the auto industry, a door company, a cold storage facility that could convert to sub-zero storage, and a pizza oven manufacturer. 

With those manufacturers, as well as emergency management and federal agencies housed at the airport, and wetland locations, space is tight to construct new buildings. 

Elliott Smith, the Port’s director of real estate and asset management, said roughly 6 acres of land at the airport and the surrounding area are suitable for new development at the moment.

“You’re talking about a very targeted, pragmatic approach to those last spaces and how we use them thoughtfully,” he said.

When looking to entice the aeronautical industry, Smith and Tyler Schroeder, the Port’s economic development director, recommended working together to target recruitment for industries that already exist at the airport as well as bringing in others.

“I think we’re able to strategize what lots we want to develop and go out with RFPs that have specific types of industries that we want to recruit, then we can have a larger, longer conversation about where to we want to locate an industrial park,” Schroeder said. He referenced industrial parks like Campbell Heights in Surrey, British Columbia, as a good example of what the port could focus on in the coming years.

Commissioner Michael Shepard stressed his desire to see the growth of the aeronautical industry at the airport. 

“There’s clearly an EV aircraft future that’s coming and we’re not doing any planning right now to accommodate it,” he said. “So it’s just going to go to Moses Lake or Everett or somewhere else unless we get ahead of that. I think we’re already a little behind the ball for this future industry.”

That focus on the aeronautical industry is one of the reasons why Shepard didn’t approve of a lease for a new pickleball facility.

Aside from recruiting specific businesses, commissioners are also aware of the need to attract people to the airport. Those needs range from enticing airlines to establish routes out of BLI, to finding ways to get restaurants in the area.

When Jansma was a child growing up in the Birchwood neighborhood, he had a prime viewing area to see planes coming into BLI. 

“If you go down to Bremerton, there’s a spot where kids can come and watch airplanes leave, there’s a way to inspire people into aviation,” he said. “Here at Bellingham, you get on an airplane and you leave. There isn’t really any place for the general population to enjoy what the airport has to offer.”

Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at [email protected]; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.