Boeing plans new delivery center in Everett

As Boeing struggles to deliver its first 787s this year, the company has decided to add one more complication at its Everett site.

Later this year, it plans to tear down its widebody jet delivery center on the eastern side of the Paine Field runway — the place where airline officials come to finalize sales, transfer money into Boeing's bank account and pick up the keys of their new jets.

The plan is to build a "new world-class, state of the art delivery center" in the same location.

Allan Giffen, planning director for Everett, said Boeing officials told him the idea is to update it in the manner of a brand new delivery center under construction in North Charleston, S.C., where Boeing will also build 787s.

"The design phase has started," said Boeing spokeswoman Elizabeth Fischtziur. "The existing building, which was built in the late 1960s and renovated in 2006, will be replaced with a larger, more modern facility."

The construction will continue into 2013. In the interim several hundred delivery center staff will relocate to offices inside the big hangar building at the south end of Paine Field that the company has leased from maintenance and repair firm Aviation Technical Services (ATS). ATS personnel will vacate the building and move into two other smaller hangar buildings nearby.

That should give Boeing's transferred delivery center staff an up-close view of the crucial 787 work already in full swing at the ATS facility.

The giant hangar floor is humming with mechanics working to modify five 787 Dreamliners. By summer, Boeing should have 1,200 employees working on those airplanes on three shifts.

Because it's a new focus of Boeing activity in addition to the main assembly plant north of the airfield, the ATS facility has been dubbed "Factory South" by the workforce.

"We are working closely with our customers to ensure that construction does not disrupt any of the current delivery operations," Fischtziur said.

For special ceremonial deliveries, including that first Dreamliner — hopefully by early fall — Boeing will likely use the Future of Flight exhibition center on the northwest corner of the airfield.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com