
Building a rental hanger
A buddy of mine and I have fallen into being high on the list to be able to build a hanger. We have already lined up a potential interested party to rent our hanger once we have built it. We need to come up with numbers for the company next week. They have a737-500 so we would have to build the hanger to 125x145x45. Potentially we will figure out a way to squeeze in office space in case they are interested in renting that as well. Is there any experience out there with this and things we need to think about or prices we could charge?

@Andrew Olson
Good afternoon Andrew,
I wondered if you ever started this hanger build or researched it more. I live in central Wisconsin and a lot of local airports are completely full and there are waiting lists. Seems like a great opportunity.

We are still looking into this. Issue is most mid sized airports are still government run and you would lease the land. Not a huge issue but with the housing explosion where we are at, the infrastructure isn’t in place to get water and power to your potential hanger builds. Then you’re just sitting on a lease you can’t do anything with until the infrastructure is put it. Additionally the quotes we were given for concrete and steel for the sized hanger we were looking to build are only good for 10 days because of the volatility of products where we are at. We are still looking into it and have our names at the top of the list but also letting things calm down a bit.

Quote from @Jeffrey Alan Slachetka:
@Andrew Olson
Good afternoon Andrew,
I wondered if you ever started this hanger build or researched it more. I live in central Wisconsin and a lot of local airports are completely full and there are waiting lists. Seems like a great opportunity.

We never started new construction but we did get an old WW2 hanger to code. We have tenants lined up once the construction on reinforcing the building is complete. We will have to augment the doors of the hanger to allow the tail off a737-500 to stick out since the opening is 6 inches too short to allow full access. This was a much cheaper option than replacing the whole door and raising the building.
What you’re asking though would be a lot cheaper to build hangers for GA aircraft. Not easy to get new property to build on near airports. The waiting list is long!

@Andrew Olson
I appreciate the update on your hanger project. I have not continued/finished my research to see what would make the most sense in terms of an investment.
That sounds like a really creative strategy to repurpose an existing hanger like that and also have tenants lined up.
Probably the one big issue I came across was the fact that you never really own the land so as far as a long term investment it seemed rather volatile compared to other investment like SF or MF property.
I’m planning to acquire an airplane for the business at some point and it does look like building a hanger for personal use could come with savings and at that point perhaps building a duplex/multi hanger could be advantages from an investment standpoint.
Definitely let me know if I’m looking at this correctly and if you have any thoughts or insight.
Thanks,
Jeffrey

The loop hole you could look at if you wanted to go down a rabbit hole but would own all the land would be creating an air park. Basically you get permission from the faa to build your own runway which can be a grass strip even and sell properties along that. Im not saying every runway requires leases but I think most do and this is a way you can own the land. Good luck.
Andy