Buckeye has started a yearlong planning effort that could shape one of the city’s largest future employment areas, covering land around Buckeye Municipal Airport and extending roughly five miles from the existing runway.
The Airport Specific Area Plan, or ASAP, is intended to turn the broad direction in Buckeye’s 2040 General Plan into a more detailed framework for land use, circulation, infrastructure and economic development around the airport. The city has scheduled a public workshop for Sept. 23 from 6 to 7 p.m. at The Landing, 945 N. 215th Ave.
The project matters because the airport area sits in a part of Buckeye that city planners expect to transition from largely agricultural and undeveloped land into a major employment district. The city’s August 2026 Existing Conditions analysis says the airport study area is positioned for significant change because of Buckeye’s population growth, transportation connections and expanding industrial and logistics activity.
A five-mile planning area with industrial potential
The study area extends roughly five miles from the center of the airport runway. Within it, the General Plan’s Airport Activity Area is generally bounded by Interstate 10 on the north, Broadway Road on the south, 303rd Avenue on the west and South Wilson Road on the east.
Buckeye describes that activity center as a future regional employment and retail hub anchored by the municipal airport. The planning documents identify potential employment uses including light industrial, logistics, aerospace-related businesses, data centers and advanced manufacturing, alongside supporting commercial services.
The city’s existing-conditions report also shows how much of the area remains unsettled from a land-use perspective. More than half of the broader study area is currently unincorporated and lacks a Buckeye zoning designation. Large private holdings and Arizona State Land Department parcels could allow some future projects to be assembled at campus scale, while annexation and infrastructure decisions will help determine how quickly development occurs.
The airport plan is separate from the airport master plan
The ASAP is focused primarily on land surrounding the airport. A separate Airport Master Plan addresses the airport property, operations and long-term aviation facilities.
The surrounding-area plan is expected to recommend more detailed future land uses and may eventually lead to zoning changes, design standards, development guidelines or infrastructure projects. City planners also have to account for aviation noise, runway safety areas, floodplains, drainage corridors, existing neighborhoods and restrictions intended to protect the airport from incompatible development.
The planning work is happening alongside other airport-related studies, including analysis of future utility needs, a possible runway extension and the potential location of an airport control tower.
Why the next year matters
No major rezoning or construction approval is being granted by the Sept. 23 workshop itself. The meeting is an early step in a planning process the city expects to last about a year.
The important outcome will be the eventual land-use and infrastructure framework. That document could influence where Buckeye steers industrial campuses, aviation-supportive businesses, commercial development and future transportation investment around an airport district that remains mostly undeveloped today.
West Valley Post will track major changes to the plan, including draft land-use maps, infrastructure recommendations, annexations and future entitlement activity, in the Buckeye Development Tracker.
Image: Entrance to Buckeye Municipal Airport, photographed in 2017 by Marine 69-71. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Image resized for web use. Source.
