Greg Hatch signed up to rent a hangar at Chandler Municipal Airport in 1998.
He’s still on the waiting list.
But Hatch is also working to develop land at the airport to help address this shortage.
His corporation, F & G Enterprises LLC, was recently approved to build 19 to 26 hangars on the city-owned land, his third such project at the airport. “I did my first development because I needed something for me,” Hatch said.
F & G Enterprises will lease about 1.4 acres of airport land from the city and build the hangars in three buildings. Chandler City Council approved the 30-year lease Sept. 26.
One building will include 11 enclosed T-hangars, which are shaped to be wide enough to accommodate a plane’s wings in the front and narrower in the rear, wasting less space around the plane’s tail. “It’s the most efficient way to keep your plane indoors,” Hatch said.
The second structure, which will be about the same square footage as the T-hangar building, will accommodate about four box hangars. The third building will offer either 11 T-hangars or four box hangars, depending on demand, Hatch said.
Hangars are one of the most requested items at the airport, said Lori Quan, a Chandler economic-development specialist at the airport.
About 125 people are on a waiting list to rent a city hangar; some people occupying hangars have been there since the city built hangars in the mid-1980s, she said.
The new hangars that will be built by F & G Enterprises will be offered for sale rather than lease, Hatch said. All of the larger box hangars will be able to apply to operate as an aviation-related business, Hatch said.
“We think this creates an opportunity for some of the smaller companies,” Quan said. “Right now we’re losing opportunities because we don’t have existing building space for businesses to occupy.”
The agreement is the result of a public request for development ideas that the city released last winter.
Hatch’s company was the only one that responded. He first approached the city with the project in January 2012, he said.
This request included about 24 acres split into 13parcels and a city-suggested lease rate of about 24 to 29 cents per square foot per year.
The agreement with Hatch’s company was for about 1.4 acres at a lease rate of about 21 cents per square foot per year.
The space Hatch is leasing is an area the city did not think would be easily developed, Quan said.
“This is the first construction project we’ve had in a while,” Councilman Rick Heumann said during the council study session Sept. 23. “We’re just really excited to have these new buildings going up.”
There is still plenty of space available at the airport that officials want to see developed, with the hopes of increasing revenue to the point that the city no longer needs to subsidize it.
Chandler has paid about $200,000 in general-fund money to the airport for each of the past several years.
The city is still considering another call for developers to find someone to build on remaining open space, Quan said. So far the challenge has been finding developers who work with ground leases, she said.
“It’s a unique development approach so it’s finding the right match,” she said.
Some people have approached the city asking to build their own hangars, but that piecemeal approach would hinder the city’s ability to strategically develop the airport, Quan said.
“It looks like we have a lot of available property on the airport, but we try to be good stewards,” she said.
Information: www.chandlerairporthangars.com.
Original article: http://www.azcentral.com
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