Palmer airport advisers want to turn a tie-down apron into T-hangars

Palmer's Airport Advisory Commission on Sept. 24 named Apron D, a narrow apron where three planes are parked, as the first place to try replacing open tie-downs with T-hangars, high-density indoor storage for small planes.

The commission took no vote, according to the meeting recording. Converting the apron would need FAA permission, which Airport Superintendent John Diumenti said sounds like something the airport can get.

None of the T-hangars at the airport are for rent; all of them are owned, Diumenti said. He has talked with close to three or four dozen people over the past three years looking for hangar space. One commissioner said a fair number of planes that spend the summer in Palmer are gone by October or November, possibly to a hangar somewhere else.

"We need something between making a 20-year commitment and signing a lease or tying your plane out in the wind," one commissioner said. "Right now, there's nothing in the middle."

Commission Chair Steve Odean said commissioners are interested in finding room to grow that doesn't affect the city's golf course, whose revenue is tied to the airport's FAA grant obligations. The city will keep running the course, and the City Council's direction after a Sept. 8 discussion is still to seek a release from the FAA obligation, the commission heard. In the short term, the city will negotiate with the FAA over a lease rate for the land.

The aprons also face costly reconstruction while bringing in little money, Odean said. Apron D works as a test, commissioners said, because it would displace so few planes.

Apron C is bigger. It holds 25 or 30 aircraft, Diumenti said, and he wouldn't want to replace them with storage for four or six. He wants close to like-for-like replacement. Odean said Apron C should wait to see how Apron D goes. One estimate at the meeting put room for about 20 T-hangars on Apron D and 40 on Apron C.

"I think that's what we really need at this airport is T-hangars," Commissioner Shannon Jardine said.

If Apron D is converted, the city would take proposals and leave the design to "a creative developer," Diumenti said. He wants the consultants working on the airport's master plan to weigh in first. Their survey of the airfield was expected to take about another month, and Diumenti expects the plan's first phase to run into next summer.