Rick Bryant, the city’s biggest cheerleader for the Lawrence Municipal Airport, has more than ever to cheer about these days.

“Things are great,” the chairman of the Lawrence Airport Advisory Board said recently. “We are finishing up the largest comprehensive project at the airport since it opened in 1929.”

This summer should see completion of a two-phase expansion of the apron, taxiway and runway. The project doubled parking apron double in size and increased the length of the runway by 700 feet, to 5,700 feet in service length.

Bryant touts the expanded airport as “the fourth longest general aviation runway in Northeast Kansas,” and said the airport can now provide services for approximately 90 percent of the world’s business jet fleet.

The airport now serves 1,000 business jet “operations” a year.

“We get a good balance between taking care of our transient clients, because we have the longer runway, and the local general aviation pilots with our 20 new T-hangars we’re building,” Bryant said.

The new hangars are in addition to the 57 that already exist at the airport.

The city paid for the new hangars — rent is expected to be under $200 a month. The Federal Aviation Administration paid most of the cost of the runway and apron expansion.

“All totaled, we have invested almost $5 million dollars in the Lawrence Municipal Airport during the past two years in a partnership between the city and the FAA,” Bryant said.

This aerial photograph shows a crowded tarmac at Lawrence Municipal Airport during a summer day on a Kansas Speedway racing weekend.

The expansion signals new efforts to make the airport help drive economic development in Lawrence

“The airport is out there to be used,” said Assistant City Manager Debbie Van Saun, the airport manager. “We’ve platted it so that companies could come in, aviation-related companies, to bring in employees.”

Some companies have. A Lifestar ambulance helicopter is based at the airport round the clock.

Officials hope they can bring in more companies.

“As we complete these infrastructure improvements, the board is focusing its energy and expertise on assisting business growth at the airport,” Bryant said. “The board’s goal is to create a systematic and businesslike approach to developing the available property with aviation-related manufacturing and service companies so the airport can continue with its multimillion-dollar annual contributions to the community’s economic engine.”

He added: “We want the city to get an economic return on its investments, instead of being purely a cost center.”

The opening of the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., also has proven beneficial. Some NASCAR teams choose to use Lawrence Municipal Airport to arrive in private jets rather than Kansas City. And Big 12 schools are now talking about flying directly into Lawrence — instead of Kansas City or Topeka — for games with Kansas University.

“NASCAR’s been a good situation,” Bryant said. “We had about 20 aircraft the first year. Last year we had 27.”

In the immediate future, the airport will host an air show of World War II aircraft this summer in conjunction with the dedication of the Dole Center at KU in July.

“We could be looking at hundreds of aircraft,” Bryant said. “It could really be a huge, cool event.”

Bryant is confident in the airport’s successful future.

“We are,” Bryant said, “the front door to the Lawrence community through the skies.”

“As technology brings communities and regions closer, the community of Lawrence should never lose sight that a healthy and active airport is one of many signs of a healthy, robust community.”