Textron undertakes $3.3 million in upgrades to Pawnee site

Textron Aviation has filed building permits for work totaling $3.3 million at its plant in southeast Wichita.

Full details of the work at the company’s Pawnee Campus weren’t available from Textron Aviation officials.

“These are just standard upgrades being completed on the East Pawnee facility,” Textron Aviation spokeswoman Nikki Riemen said in an e-mail Thursday.

According to the permits filed with Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department, the work includes relocation of a 7 1/2 ton crane, “rework” of a storage building at the site and renovation of a tooling building.

The work comes after the maker of Cessna Citation business jets and Beechcraft piston and turboprop airplanes laid out plans last year for its three sites in Wichita, following Textron Inc.’s 2014, $1.4 billion acquisition of Beechcraft.

The acquisition of Beechcraft included tens of thousands of square feet of buildings at what the company now calls its East Campus that stretches along the south side of Central from Webb to Greenwich roads.

Textron Aviation’s plans as part of the integration of Beechcraft included moving some of its component manufacturing from Plant I on the East Campus to the Pawnee Campus. That was work that Textron Aviation officials told The Eagle last year they expected to complete this year.

Under what Textron Aviation was calling its “facility optimization plan,” the company also designated the Pawnee Campus as its Component Manufacturing Center of Excellence.

This story was originally published August 18, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Textron undertakes $3.3 million in upgrades to Pawnee site."