Nov. 08--Tulsa aerospace company L-3 Aeromet plans to unveil its newly refurbished facility at Tulsa International Airport on Friday.
L-3 Aeromet Inc. has moved operations from a facility at Jones Riverside Airport to the Tulsa International building, which was once occupied by Great Plains Airlines.
"It's not a new building," said L-3 Aeromet spokesman Lance Martin. "We've renovated a facility here and we moved our operation that was over at Riverside."
L-3 Aeromet takes flight-ready aircraft and installs equipment and performs modifications to prepare them for military use. Among L-3's specialty work is the production and installation of optical and infrared sensors.
Martin said the new building gives the company the potential to expand and add employees.
"It definitely gives us much more room to grow," Martin said.
L-3Communications Holdings bought Tulsa-based Aeromet Inc. in 2003 for $20 million and renamed it L-3 Aeromet. New York-based L-3 is a technology supplier for the Department of Defense, NASA and other government agencies.
L-3 Aeromet spent about $750,000 to renovate the 68,000-square-foot building at Tulsa International, according to city of Tulsa permit records.
The new building is comprised of office space and two hangars, where employees can wheel in aircraft to be outfitted with equipment.
The building has been intermittently occupied since the 2004 bankruptcy of Great Plains Airlines, the short-lived regional carrier that was funded with a $27 million mix of government loans and grants.
After Great Plains went under, a company called Aircraft & Turbine Support occupied the building, but it also went bankrupt. L-3 purchased the building from Arvest Bank, which was the note holder for the building in that bankruptcy.
Kyle Arnold 918-581-8380
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