Avflight, the brick-and-mortar FBO division of fuel supplier Avfuel, has won the approval to establish a second FBO at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan (KGRR). Signature Flight Support operates the existing facility there. The airport is also served by six airlines flying more than 120 flights per day from the main passenger terminal.

At KGRR, Avflight will offer fuel sales, hangar storage, ground-handling, de-icing, and concierge services. Avflight will start construction on a 30,000-sq-ft hangar later this year with a pilots’ lounge, a spacious passenger lobby, conference room, kitchenette, catering kitchen, office space, and a maintenance area. It will be located at the airport’s Site 4, a five-acre parcel on the east side with “easy access” to the main terminal, taxiways and runways, according to the airport authority, which pegged the budget for developing the facility at “$6 million to $7 million.”

Michigan-based Avfuel’s Avflight division operates facilities at 21 other airports in North America and Europe, six of them in Michigan. KGRR’s interim president and CEO Brian Picardat said, “The new FBO will anchor and stimulate additional aeronautical and non-aeronautical development at the site.” The authority further reported that the airport has some 900 acres of land available, subdivided into 16 sites of varying sizes. Proposed uses include a business park, industrial development, office space, distribution facilities, hospitality, and R&D.