“AK Steel got bought out and they actually had put their plane up for sale and hangar was now vacant,” said Butler County Development Director David Fehr, who is responsible for the airport. “So Darana Hybrid is going to take their hangar, hired their pilot and bought the plane from AK Steel. So every once in a while you have a little luck.”
Fehr told the Journal-News the county leases the ground under the hangars but the tenants are responsible for building the hangars, paying taxes and utilities. The lease payment is $7,868 annually.
Darana Hybrid, which installs conveyors and other small-package-handling systems in large warehouses for such clients as Amazon, FedEx, Coca-Cola and Walmart, has been in Hamilton since 2016. It has been rehabbing a Lindenwald warehouse while moving its headquarters from Memphis to Hamilton.
AK Steel maintains an office in West Chester Twp., as well as its Research and Innovation Center in Middletown.
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News it’s probably time to re-examine the rental rates to make sure they are still competitive.
“We should look at those every so often, I want to get them on schedule so it actually reflects the way the market prices are at that time,” Dixon said. “I don’t have any reason to question what that is now. it’s just time to look at it.”
For years, the airport has been a drag on the county’s pocketbook. The commissioners have subsidized it with about $40,000 to $50,000 annually, up to as much as $100,000. The loans didn’t include the $155,000 in debt payments every year the airport budget couldn’t sustain.
The county fired former airport administrator Ron Davis three years ago, saving his $93,710 annual salary that with benefits totaled $110,310. Although the county said the firing was for economic reasons, budget hearings with Davis were contentious for several years. The commissioners were upset when they learned he didn’t inform them the contract with the fixed base operator was expiring, and they felt he didn’t develop an effective business plan.
The airport budget has been in the black since that time and commissioners even budgeted for a part-time administrator to handle the day-to-day operations, freeing Fehr to concentrate on trying to make the asset more of an economic development tool.
Effects of the coronavirus have had a major impact and hampered that plan.
“The whole world turned upside down and that’s all been put on hold,” Dixon said.
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