New Maintenance Facility at Evansville Regional Amps Up Operational Efficiency

A new $15.5 million maintenance facility at Evansville Regional Airport (EVV) is boosting the efficiency of airfield operations and has literally opened the door to buying larger and more productive snow removal equipment
Completed in December 2024, the roughly 43,000-square-foot facility is located just north of the airport’s terminal. That’s a much better location compared to the old facility, says Nate Hahn, executive director of the Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District. Ready to be repurposed, it stands approximately two-thirds of a mile east of the terminal as the crow flies and outside the air operation area security fence, with no easy access to the airfield.

“It was difficult to get our team on the airfield for snow removal because there was no direct access point to the runways,” Hahn recalls.

In fact, from the old facility, crews had to drive about 1¼ miles on an interior perimeter road to access the runways. Now, runway access is about 100 feet from the new facility, notes Jamin Heldt, a project manager and a senior engineer in the Aviation Services Division of CHA Consulting Inc., which designed and managed construction of the facility.

“This [new] building will help the airport provide a much higher level of service,” adds Heldt. “It’s properly sized and therefore larger than the old facility and is in a location that’s much more advantageous for fulfilling the airport’s maintenance needs, like mowing grass and snow removal.”

Airport reserve funds paid for the structure, which took about two years to build. A new passenger facility charge will help replenish the money spent on the project.

Last year, EVV handled around 190,000 enplanements.

Significant Improvements

The new two-story facility is more than twice as big as the old single-story facility, which was built in the 1970s and included two service bays. The old facility, which will be repurposed, also includes two smaller storage buildings, built in the 1980s and 1990s. The three buildings combined have approximately 14,000 square feet of space.

The most significant features of the new building are three spacious service bays, which are substantially larger than the bays in the old building, and much wider garage doors, which range from 20 to 32 feet wide and 18 to 22 feet tall. The wider doorways will allow EVV to use larger snow-removal machines, which will boost productivity.

“The old building had 12 different doors and widths, with some only 15 feet wide,” Hahn relates. “Our dump trucks were limited to only a 12-foot-wide plow blade. For main and secondary runways as big as ours, we need 25-foot-wide blades.”

Another new amenity is a V-Rex vehicle scissor lift, with a capacity of 80,000 pounds.

“The lift can handle all of our equipment, which will improve efficiency,” Hahn comments. “For example, we won’t have to empty the water from our firetruck before working on it, so we can make repairs quicker.”

Amenities for Maximum Utilization

The building also features a new fuel management system that can track fuel usage by vehicle.

Creature comforts include offices, a conference room, a first-aid room, sleeping quarters for up to 12 people, a locker room and showers.

A backup generator was installed to keep the maintenance department running in the event of a power outage. Personnel from the main terminal could also move to the maintenance building and work from there.

The facility’s proximity to the airfield will help reduce fuel consumption by maintenance vehicles, and additional storage space provides enough room for airlines to temporarily store their deicing equipment there.

“Now they can drive the deicers about 100 yards from our air carrier ramp and keep the equipment in a heated space and remain up and running,” Hahn says. “It offers us a good opportunity to help our airline partners.”

Pre-Engineered Construction

The airport opted for a pre-engineered metal building because it could be built faster and more cost-effectively than a conventional design. The general contractor was ARC Construction Co. Inc.

The building is situated in a northwest to southeast direction on a nearly three-acre site, which will make it easy to expand to the southeast if the need arises, Heldt notes.

“The way the storage area is laid out, with overhead doors on each end, the building could be extended in one direction without disturbing the rest of the facility’s ability to function,” he adds. “You also could expand on an end of the building where there’s an overhead door because there’d still be access available through the door on the opposite side.”

The Maintenance Facility’s new location provides direct airfield access for crews and equipment.

Most of the exterior is clad in 3-inch-thick insulated metal panels made by Metl-Span. They range in height from 8 to 40 feet and are fastened to a steel framework.

The roof is made of Superlok metal panels from Ceco Building Systems.

The facility’s service bays and storage areas feature strategically placed 7-foot-tall translucent panels from Kalwall Corp. that leverage available natural light.

Bolstering Snow Removal Operations

Currently, EVV has two broom sweepers, six dump trucks, various plow blades and deicing products to store. But with a larger facility, it can now invest in larger, more productive equipment.

A new MB4 machine with a snowblower and a broom attachment is expected to arrive in early 2026. The airport also plans to buy three to five more pieces of snow removal equipment during the next three to seven years, including wider plows and new dump trucks to replace the current ones, which are 10 to 15 years old.

“The larger dump trucks will be capable of towing pull-behind brooms, which we currently can’t do,” Hahn says.

As for the old maintenance facility, the airport plans to use it for storage in the short term. In the long term, leasing is under consideration, or demolition to make room for higher-value development.

Flurry of Improvements

The new maintenance facility is the latest in a series of projects completed at EVV in the last decade. Improvements include a $64 million runway relocation, completed in 2014; a $20 million terminal remodeling, completed in 2018; and roughly $18 million in parking lot improvements and expansion, finished in 2020. In addition, a new privately operated general aviation terminal opened in late 2024.

Parking lot improvements included a $6.5 million installation of solar-array canopies that cover 205 previously uncovered spaces in the airport’s short-term passenger parking lot and 175 spaces in a rental car parking lot. Completed in 2020, the solar panels—3,460 in all—supply about half of the electricity used by the terminal. It’s one of the largest such projects of its kind at an airport nationwide, says Hahn.

Amenities for staff include a conference room, locker room, sleeping quarters, showers and laundry equipment.

The airport took out a loan to build the solar panel canopies, which are now saving the airport $150,000 to $200,000 per year in energy costs. Those savings, coupled with increased revenue from parking fees—a result of more people using the lot now that it’s covered—will pay off the loan, Hahn says.

“On average, that lot used to be only 30% to 40% full,” he points out. “Now it’s usually about 90% full.”

In summer, the solar arrays produce more electricity than the terminal uses. That enables the airport to sell electricity to the grid, which creates another revenue stream for paying off the loan.

Looking ahead, EVV officials might expand the airport’s solar capabilities to possibly supply power to the new maintenance building. Projects like this reflect the airport’s philosophy of continually improving its infrastructure to remain competitive,
Hahn says.

“During the last eight years, we’ve put about $220 million back into the local economy through our construction projects,” he says. “I think airports should always be moving forward. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”