Mission Aviation to start campus construction

Mission Aviation Fellowship, a missionary organization that sends people and aircraft around the world, is adding housing, a community center, and an RV park expansion at its headquarters next to the Nampa airport.

MAF, with a global budget of around $100 million, provides all the support and services for a 600-person overseas operation from the 35,000-square-foot administration building it has occupied in Nampa for the last decade. The organization has more than a dozen aircraft on site at any given time, and 170 staff members at its Nampa headquarters. That site is also the place where its missionaries often stop in for long periods of time, often with their families. For that reason, MAF plans to build five 2,700-square-foot apartment buildings, each with two apartments, said John Boyd, the president and CEO of Mission Aviation Fellowship-US.

MAF also plans a 7,500-square-foot lodge with hotel-style housing and common areas, a 6,500-square-foot campus maintenance building, a playground, and a 6,000-square-foot community center as Phase II of an extended master planning process.

The group has the money for the RV park expansion, the maintenance building, two of the housing units, and the community center, and will finish the rest of the project as the money becomes available, Boyd said. He expects that to happen within the next two or three years. There’s another phase planned for the future.

Someday, Boyd would like to see a visitors’ center. MAF sees 1,000 visitors each year, said  Dianna Gibney, MAF’s communication officer.

In coming years MAF also will likely expand its hangar, now the largest at the Nampa Airport at 23,000 square feet. MAF has 18 airplanes at its Nampa site. Some are used for training, others are there for maintenance, or are awaiting deployment, were recently donated, or are going through some type of transition such as being retired or sold, Gibney said. MAF has 51 airplanes in service worldwide.

The construction manager is David Bills of Lanco, Inc., master planning and consulting was provided by Concordia Consulting LLC, and the architect was Slichter|Urgin Architecture. Site and civil engineering was provided by Mason & Stanfield Inc. A groundbreaking is planned Sept. 9.