Scaled-Down $30M+ FBO and Hangar Project Proposed at Wilmington International Airport

A proposed development at Wilmington International Airport (ILM) could add a third fixed-base operator (FBO) and 60,000 square feet of new hangar space. Ben Zucker, who owns the flight school Cape Fear Coastal Aviation and ARQ Realty, is leading the project, which he expects to cost more than $30 million. The airport currently has two FBOs, Modern Aviation and Aero Center.

Zucker said the project began as a way to give the flight school more room but evolved into a way to fill a gap in the local market, with self-serve fuel and affordable hangar storage geared toward smaller aircraft.

The current plan is a scaled-down version of an initial proposal that covered about 35 acres and included more hangar space plus a retail and office building. The revised version sits on around 20 acres and was designed to reduce site-work costs. The design review of the first version was among the issues in a complaint Cape Fear Coastal Aviation filed last year with the Federal Aviation Administration, following a lawsuit over a lease dispute with Modern Aviation. Zucker said airport officials eventually approved the plans.

The latest plans include a nearly 15,000-square-foot building with simulator rooms, debrief rooms, a larger training room and a pilot's lounge. It would be built first and attached to a 12,000-square-foot hangar.

The plans also include a 24,000-square-foot community hangar, another 12,000-square-foot hangar, and a 12,000-square-foot hangar housing the flight school's offices and a maintenance center. The school's current offices and maintenance center at 1501 Morris Drive would become a dedicated avionics shop.

Under its lease with the airport, ARQ is pre-approved to be a third FBO at ILM, Zucker said, but it would need to meet the airport's minimum requirements and receive approval from the New Hanover County Airport Authority board.

Plans have been submitted to the airport for review and the contractor is preparing a price estimate. After ARQ reviews the financials, the project would move to permitting. Zucker hopes to break ground by mid-2027, with construction expected to take nine months to a year. A later phase could follow, possibly with ILM-funded ramp or taxiway construction.

A flight school moving into FBO territory is a recognizable route into the ground-services market: training operators already control aircraft traffic, instructors and maintenance demand, and can use that base to justify fuel and hangar capacity. The ILM case shows the appeal of the small-aircraft niche, where self-serve fuel and lower-cost storage serve piston and light-aircraft owners differently from a full-service FBO.

It also shows that airport-side gatekeeping shapes these projects as much as capital does. Lease terms, design review, minimum standards and board approval all sit between a pre-approved tenant and an operating FBO, and the earlier dispute and FAA complaint illustrate how contested that path can be.

The next concrete milestones are the contractor's price estimate, ARQ's review of the financials, the move into permitting, and the Airport Authority board's approval, with groundbreaking targeted for mid-2027.