Garmin picks Mesa for new aviation hub

Garmin Doubles Down on the East Valley With Mesa Gateway Expansion

Most people know Garmin as the company that keeps you from getting lost on road trips, but the tech giant has been quietly building an aviation empire across the Valley for more than 25 years. Now Mesa gets its turn in the spotlight.

Garmin announced it has acquired a two-hangar complex at Mesa Gateway Airport totaling roughly 75,000 square feet, complete with office space for approximately 75 employees. The facility will serve as the company's third flight operations center nationwide, joining existing locations in Kansas and Oregon, and will focus on aircraft certification testing and airworthiness approvals.

Why Mesa? The answer is practically written in our sky. Gateway's three parallel runways, two stretching beyond 10,000 feet, combined with the kind of year-round flying weather that makes every Midwest pilot jealous, create ideal conditions for flight testing. The airport is already home to service centers for Embraer, Gulfstream, and Textron Aviation, making it a legitimate aerospace corridor right here in the East Valley.

This is not Garmin's first Arizona rodeo. The company started its local engineering presence in Tempe before growing into a larger Chandler campus. A 2019 acquisition of AeroData brought Scottsdale into the fold. The Mesa facility now gives Garmin a footprint stretching across four Valley cities.

The expansion comes as Garmin works to keep up with growing demand for its avionics systems, which are installed in everything from single-engine prop planes to business jets. The company won the prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy for developing the world's first certified autonomous landing system for aircraft emergencies.

For the East Valley, it means skilled engineering and flight test jobs staying local and a further boost to Mesa's growing reputation as an aerospace hub worth watching.

Sources: KTAR | Garmin Newsroom | AVweb | Flying Magazine | Aviation Week