Aircraft from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector/Air Station Corpus Christi have begun the move from Naval Air Station Corpus Christi to the Corpus Christi Municipal Airport. After three years of planning and construction, the Coast Guard will have a permanent presence at the airport for the first time.
Called Valent Hall, the new Coast Guard structure is a 170,000-square-foot building that includes offices for about 300 people. Personnel now housed in Tower II downtown, along with some from Hangar 41 at NAS-CC, will soon operate from the airport site, which sits on 9½ acres of land.
Sector/Air Station Corpus Christi houses three fixed-wing aircraft and three rescue helicopters. The sector manages Coast Guard operations on the southern Texas coast from the Colorado River to Brownsville. Along with search and rescue, Coast Guard operations include drug and human smuggling interdiction and management of commercial vessels into ports.