Detroit city airport slated for big upgrades in the next few years

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Detroit's city airport isn't the largest hub for flights in Southeast Michigan, but it home to a whole lot of activity - and is expecting even more traffic fly in.

As downtown continues to grow with outside investment, Coleman A. Young International Airport is planning to boost operations with upgraded garages and even a new air traffic control tower. 

It already hosts helicopter tours and MED flights, as well as cargo planes and executives doing business. But its director anticipates things to only get busier.

"There's a big push for corporate traffic in the city of Detroit due to all of the development that's taking place downtown, so we see ourselves playing an essential role in the overall development in the future of the city," said Jason Watt. 

Already, the airport conducts about 55,000 operations a year. AMong them is AvFlight Corporation.

"We're very excited to be building a brand-new hangar and executive terminal," said Joe Meszaros, the agency's vice president of operations.

They've been providing services since 2011 and will be building a 15,000 square foot hangar and a 3,000 square foot terminal.

"We're going to break ground at the end of this summer and if all goes well, we should have a hangar and new operations set up here within about less than 18 months," he said.

The current hangar is about 600,000 square feet and houses most of the aircraft that land at the airport. But with peeling paint and broken windows, it's seen better days. Coming up on a hundreds years of operations, additional hangers will be built over the next several years to accommodate the traffic it can't handle.

Pieces of it will even be used to help build some of the new structures that are coming in.