The flow of air travelers has a negligible impact on foot traffic at Tricia Bramley's independent coffee shop, a 14-minute drive from the Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport. And she doesn't think a face-lift will change that.
"It's just not a very big airport; it's really more around smaller flights, charter flights, that sort of thing," Bramley said. "[Updates] could probably impact more businesses around here that aren't necessarily ours."
But Hernando County commissions see upgrades to Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional will spur economic growth and attract higher paying jobs to the area. That's why they voted Tuesday to renew a hangar lease with a corporate partner and to strike a new land agreement with a company with property in the airport's technology park.
Transforming the site
Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional was once a World War II-era military airfield. The War Assets Administration conveyed the land to the city of Brooksville in 1948, which later transferred ownership to the Hernando County Commission, according to the airport's website.
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The facility has undergone extensive renovations and capital improvement projects since late 2019, including repairs to one of the roads providing access to the airport's west side. That's only the start of a series of improvements set to span two decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hernando County hired engineering and consulting firm Michael Baker International in 2013 to design a master plan to refashion the airport. Among the ongoing projects are roadway improvements and the construction of new aircraft hangars.
American Aviation Inc., a family-owned aircraft business in Brooksville, will build three hangars at the airport over the next three years. The county commission voted unanimously on April 8 to approve the lease with American Aviation, which will construct the hangars on several land parcels totaling six acres.
The airport will demolish a 50-year-old hangar on one of the parcels to make way for the expansion. Hernando County will not renew its lease with the Experimental Aircraft Association, which owns the hangar, due to the extensive repairs required to make the aging structure code-compliant, according to a county appraisal.
Experimental Aircraft Association, a nonprofit, had rented the space at well-below-market rates for 17 years, a benefit the county will no longer extend, given its fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers, the Hernando Sun reported in April.
"I don't think there was any animosity from the county to say, [it had] to get rid of the EAA," said Don Etchison, a member of the local Experimental Aircraft Association chapter. "It was really an economic issue."
Merle Wagner, who is also of the local Experimental Aircraft Association, sees the decision as more of an affront.
The county is placing American Aviation's expansion ambitions before the interests of its long-term tenant, Wagner said. It could have easily repaired the hangar, he added, but instead declared it not worth salvaging.
"That was their excuse for not renewing the lease," he said. "They could then, in turn, turn the property over to American Aviation so they could put up a new hangar.
Who's paying?
The county has applied for a $14 million federal grant to support airport infrastructure projects. It is also seeking state funding, said Hernando's economic development director, Valerie Pianta.
If those grants don't materialize, the county is considering using long-term bonds as a funding tool, Pianta added. The Board of County Commissioners already approved the concept of using bonds.
Pianta said she expects continued investment in the airport to yield robust returns for Hernando County and for corporate partners, such as American Aviation. All leases are consistent with fair market rates, she added.
"For them as the private entity, it's great," she said. "For the county itself, they exercise a land lease with us, [and] those land leases are what keep the airport running."
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