Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), the Greater Gainesville Chamber, dignitaries and members of the business community welcomed Consortia Aerospace Group (formerly Chippewa Aerospace Group) to North Central Florida as a new general aviation tenant on the airport at a Nov. 16 celebration. The engineering service firm, headquartered in Conway, South Carolina, now occupies the former Silver Airways/Eclipse Aviation building, a modern, 61,000-square-foot aircraft maintenance hangar located at 4505 NE 40th Terrace, as well as the adjacent 8,300-square-foot former AFSS (Automated Flight Service Station) building, located at 4352 NE 40th Terrace.
“Consortia Aerospace Group is very excited to occupy our new facilities at KGNV,” says Consortia Aerospace CEO Julie Myers. “The location and the assets in this community are an ideal location for us to continue to provide our services to a wide variety of domestic and foreign aerospace companies, commercial and business aviation companies, and private aircraft owners.”
GNV and the Greater Gainesville Chamber collaborated with Consortia Aerospace Group on solutions for space, personnel and introducing them to the GNV community. GNV officials had been aggressively searching for a comprehensive tenant for the facilities, left vacant since the departure of Silver Airways in 2015. Consortia Aerospace took possession of the buildings May 1 and has been actively assembling personnel and preparing the space to accommodate their operations.
“As a leading engineering service firms in the aerospace industry, Consortia Aerospace Group is making an investment in our area that will not only bring jobs, but new opportunities in the vibrant aviation and aerospace research and development industry to our region,” says airport CEO Allan Penksa. “This will be a great economic benefit to both the surrounding community and to the airport.”
“We are excited to be closing out the end of 2021 with an economic development announcement and welcome event for Consortia Aerospace Group as part of our 5-year strategy, COLLABORATE 2025," said Gil Levy, chair of the Greater Gainesville Chamber Board of Directors. "Manufacturing is incorporated into all five of our targeted industry sectors for the Greater Gainesville region making this a great win for our workforce and business community.”
