Sky Harbour announces incoming Chief Operating Officer, new manufacturing leadership, and an update on construction budget at Dallas-Addison Airport

04.01.2024 - 13:31 / traveldailynews.com / Theodore Koumelis

The company has released an update to its estimated budget at its Dallas-Addison home basing campus project.

Mr. Whitesell brings more than 20 years of construction, development and senior management experience at Turner Construction, The Related Companies, and Suffolk Construction, most recently serving for five years as Suffolk’s COO for the New York region.

CEO Tal Keinan commented, “As two years of increasingly intensive site acquisition efforts begin to bear fruit, Sky Harbour will face the challenge of dramatically scaling its manufacturing and development capacity, lowering total development cost, and maintaining a decisive qualitative edge in its physical offering. Will’s track record in managing parallel large-scale development projects, his deep corporate leadership experience, and his aggressive mission-driven approach, position him powerfully to help lead this next phase of Sky Harbour’s growth. We are excited to welcome Will to the Sky Harbour team. Alex Saltzman’s immeasurable contributions have helped to bring Sky Harbour to today’s advantageous position. We are grateful for Alex’s dedicated service, and knowing the value he will bring to his future endeavors, wish him great success.”

Mr. Benedict brings decades of manufacturing, construction and leadership experience in the pre-engineered metal building (PEMB) space, including at Lefever Building Systems and DCB Construction. He is a US Army veteran with multiple combat and humanitarian deployments.

Tal Keinan commented, “As Sky Harbour’s development activity scales, in-house manufacturing will play an increasingly important role in reducing development time and cost, while increasing build quality. Loren is a seasoned PEMB professional, and will play a leadership role in transforming RapidBuilt from a broad-spectrum PEMB company to a specialized manufacturer, optimized for efficiency, quality, and seamless integration with Sky Harbour’s design and construction teams. Sky Harbour is thankful to welcome another veteran to the team, and plans to continue growing with the veteran community, one of our society’s greatest under-tapped resources.”

Sky Harbour also released an update to its development budget for Dallas Addison (ADS) Phase 1, from an estimated range of $25-27 million to an estimated range of $30-32 million. The increase is largely due to owner-initiated improvements intended to enhance the quality and aesthetic of Sky Harbour’s offering to residents and introduced as a result of learnings at existing Sky Harbour facilities.

In Q1 2024, the company intends to make cash contributions in the amount necessary to fund these estimated cost increases from unrestricted funds on hand at the corporate level into Sky Harbour Capital and