State loan, grant boost airport firm
A state loan and grant totaling $1 million will help a company located at Spokane International Airport build a new work hangar and add an estimated 55 employees over the next three years.
The Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development approved the money Thursday during a meeting in Seattle. The agency provides funding for job growth and business expansion through grants and loans to local governments, which in turn use the money in public-private partnerships.
In this case, the state is providing a $200,000 grant and a 20-year loan of $800,000 to Spokane International Airport. The airport will use that money, along with $601,000 in matching funds, to construct a new hanger and operations center for XN Avionics, a 1-year-old Spokane company.
The project will create a 16,000-square-foot maintenance hanger with two operations bays for XN Avionics, which is a subsidiary of Cheney-based XN Technologies.
Alan Hale, president of XN Technologies, said the project will likely create about 55 more XN Avionics jobs at the airport. The avionics company, which installs and repairs aircraft communication and cockpit navigation gear, now has eight workers, he said. Hale said XN Avionics hopes to have the new building operating by August. The airport will own the property and lease it to XN, he said.
The funding is a successful outcome of an application submitted by Spokane Airport staff to CTED late last year, said airport spokesman Todd Woodard.
“We got the application done in seven days,” Woodard said.
The application was nearly identical to one submitted by the airport last year to try to obtain financial help for cargo carrier Empire Airlines. Spokane officials wanted Empire to expand its Spokane maintenance facility. But Empire officials got a better deal from the Coeur d’Alene Airport and relocated those operations there, along with 40 workers.
Hale also discussed the option of moving XN Avionics to a North Idaho airport, he said.
In looking at expanding XN Avionics last year, Hale said his company couldn’t manage without some form of state support for a new building.
The main customers of XN Avionics are owners of business jets and small private aircraft, said Hale. Because much of the work comes from aircraft owners outside of Spokane, XN Avionics is a “good example of a primary industry” with a strong growth prospects, he said.
CTED staff, in supporting the loan and grant to XN Avionics, noted that that salaries paid by the company would average about $37,000 annually — about $4,000 higher than Spokane County’s average wage. The staff report also estimated the project would generate about $800,000 annually in state and local revenue through taxes, investment benefits and other impacts.