New Aviation Center Planned for GTCC Campus Just Northwest of Greensboro

    March 4, 2022
    GTCC leaders envision a 100,000-square-foot facility, with classrooms, labs, offices and space for students to work on decommissioned planes. That, plus a parking structure, would come out to about $37.4 million, leaders estimate.

    By Jessie Pounds

    Source News & Reord, Greensboro, N.C. (TNS)

    Mar. 3—GREENSBORO — A new aviation center is being planned for Guilford Technical Community College's Cameron Campus, which is just northwest of Greensboro, near Colfax and Oak Ridge.

    GTCC leaders envision a 100,000-square-foot facility, with classrooms, labs, offices and space for students to work on decommissioned planes. That, plus a parking structure, would come out to about $37.4 million, leaders estimate.

    They expect to continue to use the college's T.H. Davis Aviation Center, which is attached to the runway at Piedmont Triad International Airport, for aviation programs.

    However, the new center would replace the school's current Aviation II and Aviation III buildings, located off Stagecoach Road near PTI.

    GTCC has secured one key piece of the money for the first stage of the project. The state budget includes $15 million for building the center, with $2 million available this fiscal year, and the remaining $13 million the next fiscal year.

    College leaders shared an update on the project on Thursday, estimating it could be ready to advertise for design services for the project later this month and possibly to take bids for construction of the first building by May or June 2023.

    That last part rests on the college being able to identify another $8.5 million for the project before then.

    Jan Knox, the college's associate vice president of marketing, communications and the GTCC Foundation, said Thursday that the college expects that will mean asking the county commissioners to provide the funding at some point.

    She said the college sees the expected growth of the local aviation industry as also a growth opportunity for the college aviation programs.

    The idea to move to the Cameron Campus came as part of discussions for the school's 10-year plan that were held within the last year, she said.

    They want to add more students to the aviation programs, she said, but they are constrained by space with the current facilities and land they are on. Going to the Cameron Campus, she said, allows for that growth.

    The Cameron Campus is about 5 miles by road from the airport terminal. It includes GTCC's supply chain management and business and industry training departments.

    When the GTCC Aviation Center at Cameron Campus is complete, GTCC expects to use Aviation III for public safety careers education. GTCC currently leases Aviation II, Knox said.

    The college envisions building in two phases. The first would add a 60,000-square-foot building to replace Aviation II.

    The second would be to add a 40,000-square-foot addition and to put in a new parking structure, for a total second phase cost of about $15 million.

    GTCC President Anthony Clarke mentioned separately Thursday that representatives from Boom Supersonic, the jet manufacturer planning to build a factory at PTI, visited GTCC on Feb. 10 and had what he called "really productive" discussions about how they could work together.

    "We are in contact with them about their training needs and startup needs, and that will continue," he said.

    Contact Jessie Pounds at 336-373-7002 and follow @JessiePounds on Twitter.

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