Business floods across county lines as Tampa Bay Executive Airport's last day draws near. There's even a waiting list for hangar space.
By JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published June 14, 2004
[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]
American Aviation employees Brian Hale, 22, left, and James Smith, 19, walk out of a company storage hanger at the Hernando County Airport. American Aviation oversees leasing at the airport and receives daily inquiries about space. A new hanger is likely.
BROOKSVILLE - Learjets that swoop NASCAR stars Jeremy Mayfield and four-time champion Jeff Gordon to races nationwide could be landing at the Hernando County Airport this fall, all because Pasco County is losing an airport.
While the NASCAR drivers may never set foot in Hernando, the company that repairs several of their airplanes, JJ Aeronautics, is noting Hernando airport's long runways and seemingly vast amount of space to grow.
JJ Aeronautics is among a few dozen soon-to-be homeless companies and pilots scrambling to relocate airplanes and aeronautics businesses at the Hernando County Airport because Tampa Bay Executive Airport in Odessa plans to close Oct. 1.
Tampa Bay Executive's impending closure may be bad for Pasco County, but it is great news for business and growth opportunities at the Hernando County Airport.
Airplanes now fill all of the county's hangars, which can house 68 airplanes, according to county officials and American Aviation, which oversees the leasing of space at the airport. And the waiting list for hangar vacancies is two dozen strong.
In fact, Hernando County is poised to qualify for $250,000 to $300,000 in state emergency funding to build a new hangar that would house about 10 more planes. The state is looking to ease the overflow problems from Tampa Bay Executive Airport, which is being squeezed out by development.
The waning days of Tampa Bay Executive have struck a bittersweet chord for Hernando County Airport director Don Silvernell, who spent 20 years at the Odessa airport.
While Silvernell is in the midst of revamping the county airport's future due to the Pasco-induced growth spurt, he has spent the past few weeks remembering how he helped build a 3,000-foot strip of mowed grass in rural Pasco County into a small, bustling private airport along State Road 54.
"I hate to see that place go. I've got a lot of sweat and tears vested in that place," said Silvernell, whose family owned Tampa Bay Executive in the 1980s. Silvernell managed the airport until 1995.
At the same time, he is busy fast-tracking growth plans for new airplane hangars and other space at the Hernando County Airport.
Both the county and American Aviation continue to receive inquiries about space each day. The county just opened two new hangars with 28 slots less than two years ago, and already the county had planned to use Department of Transportation dollars to help build more hangars next year.
"We're currently working on an airport master plan, and this just blows our forecasts right out the window," Silvernell said.
While Hernando County is just one of several nearby public and private airport options for the 100 or so pilots and businesses displaced by Tampa Bay Executive's closing, some pilots and owners say they prefer Hernando because of the size of the airport and its runways.
The county airport's two runways - one 5,000 feet and another 7,100 feet - are long enough to land Boeing 737s. They're twice the size of runways at North Tampa Aero Park in Wesley Chapel, the Hidden Lake Estates airstrip near New Port Richey and the Clearwater Airpark.
The county airport also has plenty of room to grow, sitting on 2,400 acres, which also accommodates the Airport Industrial Park, the Corporate AirPark and the county's RailPark. Revenue from business leases helps pay for operations and growth at the airport.
Runways, price and location attracted JJ Aeronautics owner Juan Jose "JJ" Franco to the airport off U.S. 41 south of Brooksville. He needs runways big enough to land the Learjets he works on.
While he also repairs planes that do not chauffeur NASCAR drivers, he would be competing with long-established American Aviation at the Hernando airport. So Franco plans to rely heavily on his NASCAR contacts.
"It's abnormally expensive to be in St. Petersburg-Clearwater, and Zephyrhills is in the middle of nowhere, so my only choice was Hernando County," said Franco, who has just started the process of securing a lease in Hernando. "The pilots are not concerned about the move. They will fly to Brooksville with no problems."
Hernando County Airport is even making the list of options for some unusual candidates, including the Pasco County Mosquito Control District. The district uses an airplane for all its aerial spraying of adult mosquitoes, including those carrying the West Nile virus.
"We'd love to go to Brooksville, but distance is a major factor, because we're talking about 40, 50 or 60 minutes, just in one direction," district director Dennis Moore said.
Moore acknowledged that while on the list, Hernando remains a low priority because of its location across the Pasco line.
