The Tri-Cities Airport expects to see several million dollars in new hangar construction this year in Pasco.

Airport Director Buck Taft said three new planned hangars will help to create a good mix of general and commercial aviation offerings at the airport.

The airport is home to more than 120 fixed-wing aircraft, which include jets, multiple- and single-engine aircraft, and helicopters.

“Nice aircraft are stored in those hangars and they all may do maintenance here, buy fuel here and do operations here. It all adds up to make a healthy airport,” he said.

The Port of Pasco is negotiating with Battelle on a hangar lease.

The port would build the 18,000-square-foot hangar and Battelle would lease it, Taft said.

Tentative plans call for hangar construction to start later this year, he said.

The new hangar would be west of the airfield. Battelle’s current hangar is on the east side.

The demand for more hangar space prompted Loren Watts to build one at 4218 Stearman Ave.

The new building, valued at $1.2 million, will include three private hangars under one roof.

The 19,200-foot-wide hangar will include three 80-by-80-foot hangars big enough to fit “medium-size corporate jets,” Watts said.

Watts said one of the hangars will house his planes and helicopter, and he’ll sell the other two hangars “to corporations with their own planes,” he said.

He expects the project to be completed by mid-summer.

“We’ve got the building ordered, and we’re doing site work now and have a building permit in hand,” he said.

Watts and his brother Doug have constructed four other hangars in Pasco.

“My brother and I have built all of those white ones out there,” Loren Watts said.

These four have been sold to other businesses.

Musser Bros. plans to complete construction on a new 9,000-square-foot aircraft hangar later this year that will be adjacent to its new Trucks & Auto Auctions facility in the port’s Tri-Cities Airport Business Center on Rickenbacker Drive.