8/18/14 Airport authority wants $1.5 million bond to fund jet hangar construction

  • By Nick Sabo
  • August 18, 2014
  • 405
                        
SUMMARY: Airport authority says hangar would pay for itself in new rentals and jet fuel sales. A new, 14,400 square feet jet hangar at the Holmes County Airport should bring in enough revenues to fund payments on a $1.5 million bond needed to construct it. The Holmes County Airport Authority Monday Aug. 18 asked the Holmes County Commissioners to back the $1.5 million bond, which will be used to construct a hangar capable of housing up to 10 airplanes. The bond will also be used to make runway improvements and install a new door on an existing hangar. The airport authority estimates construction of the hangar at $1.2 million. To get a bond rating, the airport authority needs the commissioners’ backing, airport authority boardmember Josh Proper said. The payments on the bond would be made through rentals in the new hangar and increased fuel sales, airport authority board president John Byler said. According to numbers compiled by the airport authority and presented to the commissioners, jet hangar rent in the first year would bring in an estimated $78,000, and grow to almost $100,000 in six years. Jet fuel sales would bring in an estimated $16,350 in the first year, increasing to an estimated $20,867. Taken together, the first year estimates add up to $94,350. The annual debt service payment on a 30 year $1.5 million bond at 3.5 percent interest is $80,828, according to numbers presented by the airport authority. The hangar will be the cap on a runway extension project currently in the final phases of construction. The project replaces the current, 3,500 feet runway with a new 4,400 feet airstrip that can accommodate small jets. Airport base operator Larry Clark said there is interest in the airport becoming home for at least three jets. “I could move two jets in tomorrow,” Clark said. “If we had the hangar space we could have them in now. When we have the runway finished, we can move in a larger jet, with a 72 foot wingspan. It won’t fit in the hangar we have now.” Clark said the airport’s new runway will allow for the kind of small jets used by businesses to make buying trips. For example, Clark said, furniture buyers will fly in, select the products they want to buy, then have them shipped back. Clark said such activity is already going on, with the jets landing “in Canton or Wooster” and driving to the area’s hardwood furniture shops. Texas and Oklahoma oil and gas companies in on Ohio’s shale oil boom ferry their people in by jet on one-stop flights, and the airport is able to accommodate that kind of traffic, Clark said. The airport authority will further use the bond money on a $220,000 project that will pave 300 feet runway overruns at each end of the airstrip. The overruns will bring the total airstrip length to 5,000 feet. Commissioners voiced their support for the bond. Commissioner Joe Miller said commissioners will review the idea with the prosecuting attorney and a bond agency, and get back with the airport authority with their findings.


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