Designed to feel like an old farmhouse, the breezeway of Lantana airport has Old Florida charm.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
Former Manalapan Mayor Kelly Gottlieb loves flying out of the Lantana airport.
She points to its Old Florida terminal and the relaxed atmosphere as the reasons she’s used the airport for 15 years to park her Cessna 210.
“When I have out-of-town visitors,” she said, “I take them to the terminal to show them a piece of Americana.”
The terminal, built in the style of an Old Florida farmhouse with a breezeway through the middle, has an office with wooden benches and model planes hanging from the ceiling. The office also is filled with other bits of Palm Beach County aviation history, including old flight maps on the wall.
That homespun history probably will change next April when a new company takes over operations at the county’s general aviation airport, officially known as Palm Beach County Park Airport. It sits at the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and Lantana Road.
Bids due this month
Bids were originally due June 21, but that was extended to July 19. They will include proposals from companies that attended a mandatory pre-bid meeting in May. The leading contenders are: Landmark Aviation, based in Houston, which operates the Pahokee and Palm Beach Gardens airports and three other Florida airports; Galaxy Aviation, with operations at Palm Beach International and Boca Raton airports and three other Florida airports; and Sheltair Aviation, based in Orlando, which operates the Executive Airport in Fort Lauderdale and 13 others in Florida. No representatives from these companies could be reached for comment.
The county airports department also has requested bids to develop a corner section of that airport property. The airports department wants to rent the vacant land. At the end of the lease, it would take control of the buildings.
Most of the companies that attended the pre-bid meeting to run the Lantana airport also sent representatives to the pre-bid meeting to build a hotel, restaurant, gas station with retail or other commercial project.
Bids for that project also are due on July 19.
Owen Gassaway III photographed at his Florida Airmotive building at the Lantana airport. Suspended above Owen is a Beech 18 with a tail number ending in LG. Up until the 1990s, LG was the aircraft registration tag that refered to Lantana Gassaway. At the right is a photo of Owen’s father, Owen H. Gassaway Jr., and his mother, Alice Gassaway. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Airmotive spent millions
For the current Lantana airport operator, Florida Airmotive, it’s the end to the company’s lofty place in Palm Beach County aviation history. Owen Gassaway Jr., a fixture in the local aviation community, started that company in 1941.
Since 1975, Florida Airmotive, with the older Gassaway at the helm, has had the ground lease with the county airports department. In 1986, his company secured a 20-year lease with a five-year renewal option.
His company spent millions to turn the airport — oft-described as “the junkyard” because of its decrepit buildings — into a homey showcase that pilots, student pilots and visitors would enjoy.
He died in 2007, and now his only son, Owen Gassaway III, operates Florida Airmotive.
Asked why his company isn’t a bidder, he said, “The county was not interested in extending the lease.”
That might be the only common ground between the county’s department of airports and Florida Airmotive.
“Florida Airmotive has had the lease for 25 years — an extensive time — now it’s time for someone else to get the contract,” said Bruce Pelly, the county’s airports director. “It was advertised; anybody who qualifies can put in a bid.”
The county is looking for a good, competent operator, he said. “We’re not looking to make changes, we just want to improve it.”
County seeks more revenue
The Lantana airport, with 125,000 takeoffs or landings in 2012, is restricted to fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters; jets are not allowed to land there. It does not have an aircraft control tower, and aircraft follow a voluntary noise-abatement plan. It also does not charge landing fees.
Most of those aircraft operations are touch-and-go landings practiced by student pilots at the three flight schools based at the Lantana airport, Gassaway said.
The county airports department makes money from the Lantana airport in several ways: ground rent, share of the rent charged to tenants in the hangars, a share of the tie-downs and a 5-cent surcharge on fuel used by aircraft.
That totaled $120,000 in the most recent financial year, said Mike Simmons, finance director for the county airports department. (The airports department budget is not part of the county’s general fund.)
Starting in April, the department is looking to make $200,000 annually from the hangar rentals, plus an additional $9,487.50 for ground rental of the 14.63 acres, and an additional $10,000-plus from fuel sales (204,430 gallons were sold in 2012), according to its proposal.
It is offering a $2 million rent credit to the new Lantana airport operator to fix or replace the hangars. It had originally offered $1 million but doubled the amount after potential bidders said more money was needed to do the repairs.
The hangar ownership became a contested issue between the county and Florida Airmotive. The county won in court because it had included a standard clause in its lease with Florida Airmotive, saying at the end of the ground lease the improvements would revert to the county.
Gassaway concedes that his company was on the losing end of that litigation, but he adds that the county can’t take control of the hangars until his lease runs out in 2014.
His company also contested the designation of the non-airport-use parcel more than 10 years ago, when his dad was still alive. They have a collection of letters from local and government officials saying the land should not be developed in case the airport needs it.
“We might not need it today, or tomorrow, but in the future,” the son said. It’s the last piece of open land near the coast that could be used for airport expansion, he said.
The airports department will put a standard clause in the land lease for that 5.99-acre parcel, according to Laura Beebe, deputy director. The clause would state that the parcel may be needed by the Federal Aviation Administration in the future, but she thinks it is unlikely to happen.
School is part of plan
Also at the airport, plans are in the works for a new magnet school, operated by BASA Aeronautics Inc. The nonprofit runs its Aerospace Academy now at the Boynton Beach High School.
It needs work space for high school students and adults to train to be certified jet engine mechanics and airframe technicians, said Paul Hershorin, director of the magnet program and assistant professor at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. The foundation has commitments from two people to pay for the $2 million facility, he said. The school still has to work out its lease with the county.
Pilots hope charm remains
Many pilots who use it, including Gottlieb, the ex-Manalapan mayor, and Gary Kosinski of Ocean Ridge, love the Lantana airport.
Since 1999, Kosinski has parked his plane there. The airport’s “old charm and simplicity make it one of the nation’s wonderfully unique fields,” he said. “The crew at Florida Airmotive and the aircraft and maintenance at Palm Beach Aircraft are second to none.”
Still, he sees the need for significant renovations and upgraded hangar space.
He and the other pilots are hoping the new operator will maintain the old charm while updating the facilities.
As to what Gassaway will be doing next April when his Florida Airmotive turns over the keys to the Lantana airport, he plans to “get in the unemployment line. I hope it still exists.”
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