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On a given day, upwards of 1,350 workers file into a mammoth building with architectural flourishes like arched ceilings that resemble the innards of an aircraft fuselage.
The former United Airlines repair base now employs about as many as when the airline abandoned it six years ago.
But turbulent times in commercial aviation, and uncertainty surrounding another tenant that's helped fill United's void, could set back attempts to redevelop what in the early 1990s was touted as one of the nation's biggest economic development projects.
Aircraft repair giant AAR Corp., the largest tenant of what is now known as the Indianapolis Maintenance Center, has seen business slow here. Though AAR's overall aircraft maintenance revenue was higher at its facilities across the country, "sales were lower at our Indianapolis ... facility, reflecting reduced demand as a result of airline capacity reductions," the Chicago company said in its most recent annual report.
United and FedEx both pulled from service aircraft types that were fixed at AAR's local facility. FedEx, for example, retired its Boeing 727s.
AAR has nearly 700 employees here working in 786,410 square feet of hangars and shops. Southwest Airlines is the primary customer.
But as recently as April of last year, AAR had nearly 1,000 people working here and lamented that it couldn't fill positions fast enough.
AAR's new vice president and general manager at IMC, Danny Martinez, chalked up the current environment to the cyclical nature of the industry, compounded by the severe recession.
Still, AAR...