The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), along with the Lakefront Airport Preservation Partnership (LAPP), laid out their vision for the future of Burke Lakefront Airport during an open house with media, local officials, and other stakeholders, while pushing back against \u201chypothetical concepts\u201d for possible redevelopment of the airport site released today by the mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom delaying critical, life-saving care, to ending opportunities for local students to learn about aviation\u2014today\u2019s event made it clearer than ever that the impact of closing Burke Lakefront Airport would be felt far and wide,\u201d said AOPA Great Lakes Regional Manager Kyle Lewis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event, hosted by Aitheras Aviation\u2014a medical evacuation and transport company\u2014comes after weeks of planning and coordination with airport officials and organizations that would be impacted. At the same time, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb\u2014who is attempting to circumvent federal law to close the airport\u2014and the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation released a report showing concepts to possibly redevelop the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy releasing what they call \u2018hypothetical concepts,\u2019 it\u2019s clear that the mayor wants to distract from the good being done at the airport\u2014and all without a comprehensive plan,\u201d said Lewis. \u201cAnd just hours after its release, it\u2019s clear that Cleveland residents aren\u2019t buying it. They know it\u2019s a waste of money, while taking away this unique public resource.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These concepts, which include two options for redevelopment, feature a campground, walking trails, parkland, golf course, a sledding hill, and a \u201cgreat lawn,\u201d and each plan would cost taxpayers more than $21 million per year to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs it stands today, Burke Lakefront Airport costs taxpayers nothing. It is funded through Cleveland\u2019s airport system and operates like reliever airports in every other major city\u2014to serve general aviation while not impacting commercial operations at larger airports,\u201d said Lewis. \u201cThis report also does nothing to explain how the city plans to accommodate the more than 50,000 takeoffs and landings from Burke Lakefront at nearby airports. The nearest reliever airports in Cuyahoga County and Lake County are full. And nobody\u2014from Mayor Bibb to air traffic controllers to the traveling public\u2014should want to add traffic to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, which does not have the infrastructure to handle this influx.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverything the mayor and the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation want to accomplish can be done through compatible use,\u201d added Lewis. \u201cNow that the mayor has commissioned a report on alternative uses of the property, we continue to urge the mayor to work with the FAA on an Airport Master Plan and compare the two. This would not only take into account possible uses for the site, but also account for the extensive remediation that would be required, which today\u2019s report did not touch on at all.\u201d (A report from the Center for Cleveland<\/a> in November found that remediation of just over half of the airport property could cost $800 million.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full list of organizations that participated in the open house is below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aitheras Aviation<\/p>\n\n\n\n Argonaut Davis Aerospace & Maritime High School<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cleveland National Air Show<\/p>\n\n\n\n National Air Transportation Association (NATA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n National Business Aviation Association (NBAA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n North East Ohio Pilots Association (NEOPA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Signature Aviation<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), along with the Lakefront Airport Preservation Partnership (LAPP), laid out their vision for the future of Burke Lakefront Airport during an open house with media, local officials, and other stakeholders, while pushing back against \u201chypothetical concepts\u201d for possible redevelopment of the airport site released today by the mayor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-ohio"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34666,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions\/34666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}