Developer building hangars for jets at Carson City Airport

Jet Ranch will make Carson City Airport a viable place for private plane owners to touch down.

The 12-building, 82,400-square-foot facility on three-plus acres will include one large aircraft hanger and 11 smaller units for lease. Construction starts this month on the $8.5 million project.

The builder is Valley Construction Company, and the architect is Licata Hansen Associates Architecture. Hangars will lease in March.

The challenge, says Ralph Smith, Reno-based executive vice president for Valley Construction, is the fast build time.

To speed progress, construction is happening hand in glove with design, rather than waiting for all the design work to first be completed.

The hangar, he adds, goes beyond the typical metal building and will reflect the high-end image of the aircraft it houses.

Among those aircraft are the planes and helicopters owned by the developer, Tom Gonzales of Dayton-based KCXP Investments LLC. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resident maintains a home at Lake Tahoe.

"His plane is so large there's not a hanger in the area to accommodate it," says Steve Lewis, chairman of the Carson City Airport Authority. "So he will use the main, large hanger and lease the other smaller hangers."

The airport authority looked favorably on the project because Gonzales is here only 10 days a year, so the airport can also rent the large hanger.

"There's a big demand for corporate-size hangers," says Lewis. Legislators and lobbyists fly into Carson when the Legislature is in session. Las Vegas mega-developer Steve Wynn, for instance, needs to hangar his Gulfstream when he comes to town.

The privately-funded hanger complex is happening in tandem with federally-funded improvement of the airport.

Carson City airport is the smallest of any airport serving a capitol city in the United States and is also the only one lacking an instrument landing system.

So it was granted $25 million in federal funds for an airport improvement project over five years. That includes realigning the runway, adding taxiways, and taking down a $5 million hill.

"We see the wealth of Reno moving toward the south end, around Mount Rose Highway," says Lewis. Those people will compare a 15-minute drive to the Carson City Airport with a 25-minute drive to Stead, where most general aviation planes are parked now.

Plus, the Carson City hangars spare airplane owners the 6 percent tax levied by the Washoe County Airport Authority. And fuel costs $1 a gallon less, mostly because taxes are less.