Navy aircraft deal promises 400 jobs at rural Eastern NC industrial park
North Carolina has inked a deal for the U.S. Navy to maintain and fix aircraft at a large industrial park near Kinston, solidifying a partnership officials expect will create around 400 jobs in the eastern part of the state.
Positioned within 100 miles of both Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, the Global TransPark spans 2,500 acres and counts Airbus and the private jet company flyExclusive among its tenants. It was built around one of the longest civilian runways in the eastern United States, allowing companies to shuttle parts in and finished goods out.
In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly loaned this state-owned business park $350 million to prepare the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center East, or FRCE. The Navy plans to ready HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and 130 transport aircraft at the site 80 miles southeast of Raleigh.
For eight years, North Carolina will allow Global TransPark to reinvest most of its Navy tenant revenue back into the site to build additional hangars and warehouses. The Navy has leased space at the Kinston park before; in 2020, it occupied a hangar to work on H1 helicopters. This experience encouraged the military to expand outside military bases, Global TransPark executive director Jeremy Stroud told The News & Observer.
“It’s going to affect Lenoir County and Kinston,” Stroud said. “But also the region by pulling in workforce to help run the site.”
The agreement between the state and federal government runs for 10 years, Gov. Josh Stein’s office announced in a statement Thursday, and will see the Navy pay $15 million annually once the military completes its move.
According to Stein’s office, the military will bring aircraft in by the end of the year. The N.C. Department of Transportation is then scheduled to complete the site’s initial hangars in the summer of 2027.
The General Assembly created the business park in the 1990s to stimulate economic growth in rural Lenoir County and its surrounding communities. A decade later, TransPark was still struggling to land tenants when the state offered Spirit AeroSystems $180 million in incentives, including a $100 million grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation to build a plant.
The region has not matched the explosive growth of the Triangle or Wilmington; the N.C. Department of Commerce ranks Lenoir as the 18th most economically distressed county out of 100.
But after its slow start, the TransPark has attracted several aerospace businesses. Its website currently lists eight non-state or county employers, including Airbus, which now owns the former Spirit operations.
N&O transportation reporter Richard Stradling contributed reporting.
