Park Electrochemical Corp. announced that it has selected the Newton City-County Airport in Newton, KS as the site for its new Advanced Composite Materials development and manufacturing facility for aircraft structures. The facility, which the company plans to complete by the end of the company’s next fiscal year, will be approximately 50,000 square feet, and will contain manufacturing, laboratory and office space. The company plans to spend approximately $15 M on the facility and equipment.
Newton, KS, is located approximately 20 miles north of Wichita, KS, and is approximately a 20-minute drive from central Wichita. Wichita, KS is home to a number of major General Aviation aircraft manufacturers, and the company is situating its new facility in the greater Wichita area in order to be in the position to work closely with, and to more effectively support, the Wichita aircraft manufacturing community.
Brian Shore, Park’s president and CEO, said, “This is a very exciting day for Park. We are very much looking forward to working closely with, and supporting to the best of our ability, the General Aviation aircraft manufacturers located in the Wichita area, as well as those located elsewhere. Our new Newton facility, along with our new Pioneer Plant under construction in Singapore, forms part of our global strategy relating to developing and supplying advanced composite materials for aircraft structures. We are very pleased to be locating our new facility in the wonderful community of Newton, KS. It is very fitting that our new facility will be situated right off of Taxiway Echo at the Newton City-County Airport, one of America’s truly beautiful General Aviation airports."