Spirit Airlines announced plans Friday to construct a new maintenance hangar for its aircraft at Detroit Metropolitan Airport that it anticipates will add more than 80 new jobs to the area.

The hangar will be the lead maintenance facility for the budget airlines, which chose Detroit Metro Airport over a competing offer in Texas for the hangar's location.

The 126,000-square-foot hangar will replace an older and smaller hangar at the airport that Spirit had used until it was razed about five years ago.

Joe Resnik, Spirit's vice president of technical operations, said the new hangar could be ready by the third quarter of 2016.

The hangar will once again allow the airlines to do its own indoor maintenance work. Since the old hangar closed, Spirit has had its mechanics do work outside or hired third-party contractors for necessary indoor work, he said.

"This is actually going to be our first hangar in about five years," Resnik said. "We had a hangar here in Detroit at one time ... and this is an opportunity to get that back."

Resnik said the incentive packages offered to Spirit at the state and local levels influenced the airline's decision to build in Detroit rather than Texas. The airlines already employs about 80 people at Detroit Metro Airport, he said.

The Michigan Strategic Fund awarded Spirit a $1-million performance-based grant to build the hangar. The City of Romulus would not provide details on Friday of its tax incentive package for the airline company.

"Wayne County is clearly open for business," Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said at the project's announcement in the North Terminal ticket lobby.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl.