Oct. 3, 2019
Sioux County Regional Airport, slated to open next month, is located halfway between Orange City and Sioux Center, IA. The new airport, which boasts a 5,500-foot-long and 100-foot-wide runway, has offices, a conference room, training room and pilots’ lounge, a maintenance facility on site, two 12,000-gallon fuel tanks and room to house 35 planes – more than the current two airports combined.
“I think it’s a pretty significant impact regionally,” Dennis Dokter, assistant Sioux Center city manager and community development director, told the Sioux City Journal. “It allows businesses and industries to grow and operate, but we’re also getting some looks from new industries.”
Companies in Orange City and Sioux Center have long been limited by their cities’ airports. The shorter runways often can’t accommodate the increasingly larger jets that company executives use for travel or to fly in clients and vendors. The airport limitations also have caused delays for businesspeople, who can’t fly out or must drive to larger airports in the area to pick up clients and vendors.
Area officials noted the added convenience will attract more companies to use the airport, so they can expand and create more jobs in the area. Eventually, 15 employees will work at the airport, which is also planning to house a charter service and a crop spraying company.