April 22, 2011
Van Mitchell
GUTHRIE – The Guthrie-Edmond Regional Airport board Tuesday approved the formation of a committee that will come up with a blueprint plan for commercial property development at the airport.
Edmond board member Rowland Denman and Guthrie member Lamar Wade were appointed to the committee with board chairman Richard Geib and Bill Horn named as alternates.
Geib said the airport has received several inquiries last year from corporate and commercial officials who expressed interest in building hangars at GERA.
“We’ve had some people asking when we were going to get involved in corporate and commercial hangar development,” Geib said.
Geib said the committee will look at creating a uniform plan that will include minimum size for a hangar, cost per square foot and a utilities outline.
Geib said GERA needs to create this plan to help attract more corporate and commercial business to the airport.
“It’s going to take a lot of leg work, but these are the type of things the committee will be coordinating,” Geib said. “This is something we need to have in place now.”
In other action, GERA manager Lee Ivie told the board about revising GERA’s 2013 minimum standards plan, which is the rules and regulations of how an airport operates.
Ivie said one option is to allow GERA’s engineering firm Garver Engineering create the revisions or the board could choose to revise the plan itself.
If Garver creates the plan, it could cost $45,000, he said. Most of that funding would be reimbursed through a Federal Aviation Administration grant.
“The question is do you want to have people from the outside telling you what your minimum standards should be,” Ivie said. “The board could also choose to update the plan itself if they wanted to.”
Ivie completed his manager’s report by stating that Glacier Petroleum Company has finished removing the oil well from the recently purchased Frank Bross property west of the airport. The removal of the oil site will allow the airport to add about 2 additional acres of land for development.
Ivie added that Ron Jewell’s 50-foot by 50-foot hangar project is nearly erected and Bob Conrad’s property lease was approved by the Guthrie City Council and hangar construction will start shortly.
In other action, the board watched a slideshow presentation from Guthrie board member Joe Underwood who had photographed the airport.
Underwood complained that one of the airport’s tenants had several tractors, airplane parts, an RV and a gasoline tanker sitting outside its business hangars.
“We need to take action and clean this place up,” Underwood said.
Underwood also complained about the airport’s lack of greeting service and parking instruction when corporate planes land at GERA.
He cited the recent arrival of a Canadian corporate jet that landed at GERA and there was no one to direct the plane where to park or to greet the visitors.
Underwood cited other Oklahoma airports had better service, which resonates with corporate officials who continue to utilize those airports for business.
“We have to take care of them when they show up,” Underwood said. “It’s that kind of (personalized) service we need if we are going to get these corporate guys to come back here. We have a great facility here but we have to get over this hump. Those are our customers. That is who we are after.”
http://www.edmondsun.com/archive/x1019714391/Airport-board-eyes-commercial-development
Source: THE EDMUND SUN
Date: 2011-04-22