Construction under way on FlightSafety facility
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June 10, 2010
FlightSafety International Inc., has broken ground for its new facility at Kenosha Street and Lynn Lane.
A rough timetable of when the corporation will completely transition to mid-town BA has the relocation taking place sooner, rather than later.
“We believe we’ll have the construction completed within the next year,” said Lowell Faulkenberry, director of finance for FlightSafety. “At that time we’ll be moving the majority of our operations over.”
Scheduled for completion in June 2012, within the structure, 1,000 Flight Safety employees will design and produce sophisticated, technology-laden flight simulators used to train civilian, commercial and military aviators.
“The structure is currently slated to be about 340,000 square feet,” said Rick Armstrong, vice president of the company. “It will be able to hold up to 1,000 of our teammates.”
In business since 1951, the company is an internationally recognized developer and supplier of flight simulation training equipment that chooses to base some of its global-reaching operations in Broken Arrow.
“We have been very pleased with the community and the availability of qualified persons who have joined our team,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong was clearly excited in regard to the company’s expansion in BA; however, before the site can support the planned structure, it must undergo significant development.
A two-story building will share the southwest corner of Kenosha Street and Lynn Lane with water and communications towers after utilities and an engineered retaining wall is put in place.
“We have a retaining wall that will be going around the cell towers and water tower,” said Colby Yokley, site superintendent for Crossland Construction Co. Inc. “The wall will be roughly around 1,800 to 1,900 feet in length, and it will be like a ‘U’ shape going around them [towers].”
Crossland is responsible for clearing the site, ahead of earthwork and preparation for utilities. The company will also complete the buildout of the custom-designed facility. FlightSafety is currently located at 2700 N. Hemlock Circle.
The move and expansion was made possible by a tax increment finance district put in place by the city of Broken Arrow to keep the high-paying jobs in the community. That TIF will ultimately provide more than $6 million for the project.
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