Multi-million dollar developments, upgrades planned for El Paso International Airport

EL PASO, Texas -- The El Paso International Airport has undergone several improvements in recent years and airport officials are looking to the future. This week, city council was briefed on the upgrades the airport could see in a few years.

The city plans on investing more than $177 million over the next five years. Most of that coming from federal dollars, including 6.3 million for the next five years thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed last year.

"I've worked at this airport for almost 20 years now and we've never had an infrastructure plan of this size," said Terry Sharpe, assistant director of development for the airport. "And it really matters."

"We're a couple of generations behind on the technology and we want to be buying tomorrow's technology now so that we can deploy it in the terminal and really give people something special to look at here in the terminal be proud of this airport in their community."

Some of the biggest projects include adding up to 40 acres of solar panels throughout the parking lots, which officials said will be more energy efficient, and will help off-set the city's power costs.

Another big project includes making runway improvements, repairing failing pavement issues, and fixing old design issues.

"We have a series of taxiways that intersect at the end of a runway. It's called a five-node intersection," Sharpe said. "It's kind of complicated to explain, but it will make the airport more simple in its navigation for transient pilots, and it creates a much safer airport for us."

Another major project is it's innovation factory which is located in its existing 30,000 sq. ft. Cargo 4 building. This "factory" will be apart of the airports' 250 acre Advanced Manufacturing Campus. These areas will be spaces used by start-up companies for collaborative work in the aerospace industry. The hope is these companies will be incentivized to stay here, which would be a big economic boost.

To see the entire presentation, click here.