The Salisbury-Ocean City: Wicomico Regional Airport has been sleeping.

At least that's what many county officials will tell you.

Hangars were becoming dilapidated, with various equipment left uncovered on the tarmac. No public water was available on campus. And a principal airline was left unable to fill all seats on new jets without a runway extension.

"The status quo was approaching pathetic," said Weston Young, Wicomico County assistant director of administration. "It's been a sleepy little airport. We hired Dawn to wake it up."

At the moment, manager Dawn Veatch said the airport is not sustainable without major updates.

With a desperately needed runway extension, a new corporate jet hangar, an incoming drone center for innovation, general face-lifts and talks of expanding service, the airport has a lot planned for the next few years to turn things around.

The ultimate goal is to create a robust economic driver and East Coast calling card for corporate traffic.

Various targeted projects, estimated at about $69 million stretched across five years, mark the highest commitment to the airport in the county's history, according to Young.

Congressman Andy Harris, R-Md.-1st, also announced a $1.1 million grant to the airport on Wednesday, calling it a "key economic engine" for the region.

Much of the expense will come from grants and federal funding, though the county is waiting for final Federal Aviation Administration approval by likely the end of September.

Still, it's a good sign to President of Piedmont Airlines Lyle Hogg, who said he's been "frustrated" at the lack of investment in the airport since he came in five years ago.

With "a gem" located about 6 miles outside of center Salisbury, Maryland, the county council and executive, and even national players are looking to revitalize an economic asset by injecting more life and capability into the airport.

"In an area like the Eastern Shore, an airport is vital — an anchor facility for economic optimism," said U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. "There's a critical need for an extension of the runway."

Without the increase, Piedmont can only fill its planes to about 80% when flying to Charlotte, North Carolina, a majority of the time, according to Cardin.

The runway extension is a top priority, serving the business headquartered in Salisbury for over 40 years, and other projects rest at the heels of incoming water lines.

Currently unable to build anything larger than 10,000 square feet without proper fire suppression (with a solution coming when public water lines are extended from Wor-Wic Community College to the airport in about a year), Veatch and her team have a lot of work to do to revamp the space to attract the corporate world to Salisbury.

"Piedmont has about 450 employees, and I'm looking to bring another 420 with the

with the projects I've proposed," Veatch said.

The airport manager of two years says her plans are on schedule.

"It’s absolutely explosive, the growth that can happen here," Veatch said.

What is the magic number for Salisbury's runway?

For Piedmont Airlines, extending the airport's Runway 14/32 another 1,600 feet would mean a great deal.

The current 6,400 feet length leaves the airline unable to fill summer flights to Charlotte, one of the two American Airlines hubs serves along with Philadelphia, as the new jets cannot achieve appropriate lift quickly with that weight.

After successfully switching a fleet of rotary planes to regional jets, the runway extension is needed for takeoff with a full load and enough fuel to be prepared for storms or other occurrences in the air.

"We badly need that," Hogg said, his company maintaining about six flights a day, transporting thousands of passengers a year. "We're really handicapped with half of our service out of Salisbury."

Awaiting FAA approval of her master plan within the next month, Veatch expects the runway to be officially lengthened to the 8,000 feet by 2021.

Once in place, Veatch expects more companies to be drawn to use the airport.

"The other good thing, that I think is fantastic, is it will make us a stopping point for corporate jets that are going to Europe, Africa and the Middle East," Veatch said. "It'll be a quick easy stop. They can fill up with fuel and Maryland crab, and head off."

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Wayne Strausburg described East Coast air traffic as its own I-95.

"One of the benefits of our airport is that it's really wide open airspace above us," said Wicomico's director of administration. "It's not congested. It's not like Baltimore, Washington, Northern Virginia.

"Right now, we don't have the right mouse trap to pull them out of the air."

But a longer runway is only part of the equation in creating the perfect "trap" for attracting corporate business.

The next is storage.

A hangar for Air Jordan, corporate heads

Customers might not see it yet, but Veatch wants her airport to feature the red-carpet treatment.

One of the first ideas Veatch put in the works as manager was a new "fixed base operator" and corporate jet hangar.

"An FBO is a corporate jet center that we're bringing," Veatch said. "They would provide maintenance, avionics, repairs, services for transit jets — like catering ... have really nice lounges and things like that. " Veatch said. "And be able to make this more of a calling card for the East Coast."

The roughly 38,000-square-foot hangar would allow multimillion-dollar jets to have a place to be stored as opposed to resting on the open tarmac.

"If you look at Easton and the corporate hangers they have, they get all of our business," Veatch said. "And people come here, they drop their passengers off, and then they fly to Easton ... because we don't have any hangers to put transit aircraft."

NBA-star Michael Jordan's private plane experienced just that, after Air Jordan landed in Salisbury to visit Ocean City's White Marlin Open fishing tournament in early August. The hope is more company executives and others using corporate flights will be attracted to Wicomico County.

"When companies look to relocate, they look for one thing: a viable airport to be able to get in and out of with their customers, or their businesses, or their freight, or their corporate jets," Veatch said.

There's another piece Salisbury still needs: cargo storage.

"If you look at our farmers, they ship their food and products out, and the poultry industry is huge here," Veatch said. "All of that needs to be shipped — and it needs to go out of our airport."

Perdue maintains its own hangar with two corporate jets on-site, and FedEx based on-campus runs about six flights a day with small packages.

Veatch plans to vastly increase the airport's capacity.

The county plans to create a Federal Emergency Management Agency storage facility, looking to spark a trend in bringing storage options to the grounds.

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"Flood zone maps show that the airport is actually on some of the highest ground within the county," Young said. "And if we had a natural disaster here, it makes sense that this could be the drops stage here and distribution point."

Currently, the airport has nearly no facilities for cargo, let alone the projected disaster preparedness measures.

"It's sort of like the emergency situation, (but) in the meantime, UPS, FedEx, Amazon, whoever, could use that," Young said of the planned cargo storage. "This is sort of an 'If you build it, they will come.' "

In line with the rest of her five-year plan, Veatch has a meeting with FEMA set for September and said she's confident in her timeline.

"For the consumer, what that means is that prices are better," Veatch said. "You don't have tracking delays, you don't have the cost of tracking it to another airport, having to load it there. Whereas you can bring it straight here and send it."

But concerns of many consumers are nearly all similar: prices and places.

What do the people want in a airport?

County and airport officials estimate the airport is only getting about 10% of its potential customers.

"In navigation terms, it's a catchment area," said Strausburg, as he stressed a need for increased marketing of the airport. "So we have about over 400,000 people who live in our catchment area ... They're not coming to Salisbury because they're really not even aware."

Veatch said the airport is looking at carriers to potentially provide service to Dulles International Airport, another hub with many connections for passengers near Washington, D.C.

"Growing that basis here at the airport to serve Delmarva is extremely important," Veatch said. "And it affects everybody."

As the airport races to meet competition in many areas, Piedmont Airlines said there isn't a market yet to add more destinations itself — until this community grows.

Background:To keep Piedmont in Salisbury, senators urge expansion of runway

"We don't have enough people in this community to fill up on a daily basis or multiple times a day to another city," Hogg said. "You can easily get there through one of our hubs. So I don't first see us going to another destination at Salisbury until this area really grows significantly."

Though each situation could differ from the next, both airport officials believe current prices remain competitive, while factoring in things like gas to reach other airports, tolls, parking and time.

"Soon with our new website, there will be a calculator on what you really paid for your cheap ticket out of BWI," Veatch said with a smile.

Residents hoping for a Baltimore stop from Piedmont in the future shouldn't hold their breath.

"Southwest (Airlines) doesn't have any relationship with regional carriers — they don't have the ability," Young said. "So being a smaller airport, that's one of the difficulties we have."

The "hub-and-spoke" system currently in place does allow fliers to reach hundreds of destinations once reaching either hub, making Piedmont's flights economically feasible, according to Hogg.

"I think the community can make better use of this airport," Hogg said. "I don't see why that this airport can't be the economic generator for this entire Delmarva community, not just Salisbury."

Searching for economic takeoff

When Warren Rosenfeld moved a new Rosenfeld's Jewish Delicatessen into the airport about a year ago, he knew it would take months to make what his Ocean City and Rehoboth Beach locations could do in about three days.

"The main reason, you know, wasn't to make all this money, especially in the first year or two," said the 64-year-old business owner. "It was to invest in the airport and what the airport is trying to do."

Background:Ocean City deli Rosenfeld's headed to Salisbury airport

With the deli making moves to add beer and wine in the airport, similar spirits can be seen across the runway.

"They are steps, but we need more," Hogg said of incoming projects, with over 30 years' experience in aviation behind him. "We need investment in the link to the runway, not just for Piedmont Airlines, but we need to allow corporate aviation to thrive, we needed to allow cargo aviation to thrive."

For starters, Dave Ryan, executive director of Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development, said he's just excited the county has an airport; the next step is taking advantage of it.

"Not every community has an airport. It's a competitive advantage for us," said Ryan, who has headed the organization for the past 26 years. "An airport can certainly enhance the economic vitality of the region .... Look at Charlotte airport. As that grew, it attracted investment from banking to Charlotte."

With a population about 30 times that of Salisbury's 30,000, Charlotte is likely a lofty goal, but there's tangible optimism as Veatch and the county look to invigorate the space.

"We're trying to wake it up and make it the asset that it should be," Young said.

As both the community and airport aim for growth, no parties involved want to see a "sleepy little airport" anymore.

"We'll take rail, airport, highways and air space as a unique area in our country. How many other areas in a rural place have had that type of infrastructure?" Ryan said. "Combine it all together, and I think the future's bright."