The Town of Islip has selected RXR, the New York-area real estate development firm, to draw up expansion plans for Long Island MacArthur Airport, Newsday reported.

The selection puts a private developer with a large Long Island portfolio at the center of the town-owned airport's next growth phase. Islip, which operates the Ronkonkoma facility in Suffolk County, has weighed modernization and expansion options for years as passenger traffic at the field lagged pre-pandemic levels and carriers concentrated capacity at nearby LaGuardia, JFK and Islip's principal carrier relationship, Frontier.

Details of the engagement — its financial terms, scope and timeline — were not disclosed in the report. RXR's assignment centers on planning work: identifying how the airport's land, terminal and surrounding commercial parcels can be redeveloped and expanded to lift the facility's revenue base and its utility to airlines.

For airlines, the outcome will determine whether MacArthur can support additional gates, upgraded terminal capacity and ground infrastructure capable of handling more departures. The airport sits next to a Long Island Rail Road station, a connectivity advantage that any expansion plan is expected to build around.

The town has framed airport growth as an economic priority for Suffolk County, where business groups have long argued that limited commercial air service pushes travelers and corporate activity west to Kennedy and LaGuardia. A developer-led master plan is the mechanism Islip has now chosen to convert that argument into concrete projects.

What remains undefined is the delivery path. The report does not specify which projects RXR will propose, what capital they would require, or when construction could begin. Any terminal expansion or land development at the field would need to clear town approvals and, for airport-specific work, federal review — steps that sit ahead of any construction milestone.

The next measurable signal will be the substance of RXR's plan itself: proposed projects, cost estimates and phasing. Until those documents exist, the selection is a procurement decision, not a construction commitment — the beginning of a planning process whose schedule the town has yet to publish.