Airport Breaks Ground On Massive Cargo Facility

(Left to right) Dale Kooyenga, Sup. Steve Taylor, County Executive David Crowley, Airport Director Brian Dranzik, Crow Holdings Industrial Managing Director Matt Kurucz and Crow Holdings Industrial Vice President Jack Rabenn. Photo taken Feb. 27, 2024 by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport formally broke ground Thursday on a massive, $75 million new air-cargo facility.

The project was heralded as a monumental new investment in Milwaukee County and the regional economy.

“This is gonna be really big,” said Airport Director Brian Dranzik of the project that will quadruple the airport’s cargo capacity.

Dallas-based Crow Holdings is developing a $75 million, 337,000-square-foot facility in the Milwaukee Regional Business Park, located on the southwestern end of the airport. Construction will begin this year. Once finished, it will have room for up to five Boeing 777-8F airplanes, with room for additional smaller planes, quadrupling the current cargo capacity of the airport. The airport expects to collect approximately $1.3 million annually in landing fees.

“[The project] represents a generational investment in our community’s economy for many decades,” County Executive David Crowley said.

Most of the buildings in the business park will be demolished to make way for the new gargantuan hangar. The airport is also constructing $10.5 million worth of new taxiways to accommodate the wide-body Boeing 777-8F airplanes transiting in and out of the facility.

The airport has marketed the property for years. In 2017, then-County Executive Chris Abele pitched the site to Foxconn executives for potential development. The Taiwanese manufacturer was looking for a site with easy airport access as it worked out a deal with the state to develop a massive manufacturing campus in Mount Pleasant that never materialized.

Then-County Executive Chris Abele pitched the site to Foxconn executives in 2017, as Urban Milwaukee was first to report, as part of the company’s search for a second site with easy airport access.

The public-private development is being financed primarily by Crow Holdings. The county is providing the land for the project through a ground lease expected to generate approximately $1 million annually for the airport. Following the end of the term of the lease, if it’s not renewed, the infrastructure will become public property.

The county is planning to redevelop approximately 16 acres of taxiway for the project. Crow Holdings will pay the work up-front, with the county going after a $6.6 million federal grant and $2.3 million in state funding to reimburse Crow for some of the cost.

Dale Kooyenga, president and CEO of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce, noted that the facility will provide efficiency in shipping cargo for manufacturers in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, but also for consumers who will purchase goods shipped closer to their final retail destination.

Crowley noted that representatives of major firms like GE Healthcare, Rockwell Automation, Amcor and Mercury Marine attended the groundbreaking Thursday.

Matt Kurucz, a managing director for Crow Holdings Industrial, said the project represented a new international port of entry for the Midwest. 

The new cargo facility will be marketed as an alternative to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago for businesses that want to continue using the same carrier, cargo, handler and freight forwarders. It is being built to accommodate a variety of cargo, including pharmaceutical products, anything that needs cold storage, livestock and Class 1 cargo, which includes explosive materials.

“I love the fact that we’re taking business from Illinois,” Crowley said.

The site was formerly an airbase for the 440th Airlift Wing of the U.S. Air Force. The unit was based in Milwaukee from the 1950s until 2008. A 2020 environmental investigation at the airport found PFAS chemical contamination on the site. The chemicals, which have been used in firefighting foams since the 1970s, are linked to increased risk for cancer and other health issues. Crow Holdings has spent more than $2 million conducting due diligence for the project, which included plans for PFAS remediation.

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