The Lehigh Valley International Airport today formally recommended closing Braden Airpark in Forks Township and selling the land.
There are no immediate prospective buyers, however, and the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority held off on voting today whether to accept or reject the recommendation.
Located alongside Sullivan Trail, the 80-acre Braden Airpark is the only airport currently open in Northampton County.
The LVIA came into possession of it in January after refusing to extend the previous operator's long-term lease, said LVIA Executive Director Charles Everett.
As a result, Moyer Aviation relocated its flight school and aircraft maintenance center from Braden to the Pocono Mountain Municipal Airport, Everett said.
If LVIA continued to operate it, the best-case estimate is it would lose $39,000 annually, a figure not currently accounted for in its budget.
The airport would also require $455,000 in immediate building updates and equipment, as well as a $2.2 million capital investment over the next five years.
"After evaluating the feasibility of owning and operating Braden Airport, the staff recommends the option of not continuing to operate the airport," Everett said.
That recommendation drew criticism from local pilots and organizations, who say LVIA would get little cash from the sale and surrender a valuable community asset.
"I really ask you to consider the long-term effects of doing this, as opposed to a short-term way of raising some cash," said Paul Braden, whose family previously owned the airport.
If the airport is sold, the money would likely go toward LVIA paying off the remaining $14 million of court-ordered debt for taking a devevloper's land in the 1990s.
LVIA staff did not discuss how much they could get for the land, but during discussions with authority members and the public, several people said it would likely be less than $1 million.
Any revenue that was generated by the flight school and aircraft maintenance center is now lost since those have been relocated out of Braden, Everett said.
The authority originally called a vote to accept the recommendation to close, but it was tabled until at least next month after some members requested more time.
"I think this is way too important for this board to make a decision when I don't think we have all the information," said authority member Cindy Feinberg, who is also the Lehigh County's director of community and economic development.
Clarissa MacIntosh, a pilot and member of the Lehigh Valley General Aviation Association, suggested a group of pilots could form to purchase and operate Braden Airport.
However, MacIntosh said she would need one year to do the research and form a business plan, which several authority members said was too long a time.
"Braden Airport could strive under private ownership," she said. "But because we've been blindsided about the fact that you're going to sell it, we need time to put together a proposal."
Moyer Aviation relocated because LVIA refused to extend a long-term lease, and instead proposed a month-to-month agreement.
Everett said that's because Braden was one of several properties The Rockefeller Group was considering obtaining from LVIA, and they did not want to extend a long-term lease until that was resolved.
Everett said the authority board approved holding off on a long-term lease, something authority members themselves denied.
Paul Braden said the LVIA drove Moyer Aviation away and is now struggling to deal with the results.
"It's like poisoning your wife and then complaining that you're single," he said.
Source: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment