Helping this long-standing client develop its North American Manufacturing Campus for almost a decade
As one of the largest aircraft manufacturing companies in the world, the Airbus Group provides the highly popular A220 and A320 aircrafts to customers around the world.
To better service its American clientele, including American, Delta, Jet Blue and United Airlines, the company needed a plant located in the continental U.S. Ultimately, it selected a 232-acre site within the Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile, Alabama’s Downtown Airport.
To start in 2014, a massive $600 million project was separated into four separate packages, with FSB selected to design Packages B and C, encompassing six of the nine buildings required. In all, the FSB team provided design and construction services for the Final Phase / Flight Line Facility, Gauging Canopy and Delivery Center, the Transshipment Hangar, Main Entry Gate building, and a renovation to an existing warehouse and receiving facility. FSB assisted Airbus with navigating the differences between European and American design and construction standards and guidelines.
Years later, Airbus decided to expand the Final Phase/Flight Line Facility and selected a team including FSB. This expansion brought the facility to a total of six hangar bays which support both the A220 and A320 airframes.
Airbus then selected a team, including FSB, to design a Calibration Canopy, A220 Storage Building, and a 28,000 SF expansion to the Delivery Center that was originally designed by our team back in 2014. This delivery center expansion would complete the master plan vision the client had for this building. The overall site design added 1,200 parking spots and new security entrances with check points.
Most recently, our team designed a canteen for the campus to help add to the amenities offered by the client to their employees.
All building systems were designed to meet LEED Silver certification criteria, further reducing the long-term operational costs and improving employee well-being of the entire campus.
Today, this campus is one of the most modern and technologically advanced of all Airbus’s assembly plants worldwide. As many U.S. airlines struggle to replace aging planes, operation of these facilities not only creates jobs, it makes it easier to replace those aircraft by having a U.S.-based location and improving safety for travelers across the country.