Wilmington International Airport will soon see its first business park project begin to rise, ILM finance director Jim Morton said Tuesday.

Wilmington-based Thomas Construction Group has been named to build a 10,000-square-foot flex space building at 1724 Gardner Road, near the Wilmington VA Health Care Center.

Morton said that the flex space building, which has been in the planning stages for several months, has been designed and is now in the site development stage. John Rees, of Rees Architecture, was the designer. Construction will be led by Thomas Construction’s David Converse, according to a spokesman for that company.

Morton said the building will contain space for a maximum of seven tenants. Two bays will be built out to give prospective tenants an idea of how the individual spaces will look, he said. The remainder of the building will remain a shell until other spaces are leased.

“We’ve had calls from some brokers,” Morton said, adding that the spaces would be ideal for offices and perhaps restaurants.

A bulldozer is already at work on the site, which is fenced in, Morton said. Project completion is anticipated by the end of March.

“We’re excited about breaking ground on our first commercial building for lease, and we’re looking for tenants,” he said, explaining that other buildings in the business park, such as the clinic, were built by other entities that have leased the land from the airport authority. This is the authority’s first ground-up project, and income from leases will give the airport a new revenue stream, Morton said.