Palmer airport plans to ask FAA to approve golf course rent of at least $114,000

Palmer Airport Superintendent John Diumenti plans to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to approve raising rent for the city golf course, which sits on airport land, to at least $114,000 a year. He outlined the plan to the Palmer Airport Advisory Commission on Oct. 22.

Diumenti put the current rent at about $15,000, or $100 an acre.

Under his proposal, the course would pay the larger of $114,000 or 15.5% of its gross revenue. Diumenti said he averaged the course's operating results from 2019 through 2024, when it produced an average of about $114,000 in cash at a margin of about 15.5%. He left out 2025, when operating revenue topped expenses by $400,000, because that gap was so large.

The budget says 2025 was the first year in the course's history it brought in more cash than it spent.

"It has to fit with our grant assurances, it has to fit with FAA airport policy," Diumenti said. FAA policy generally requires fair-market rent when airport land is used for non-aviation purposes.

The city's 2027 proposed budget lists the $114,000 payment. A note beside it cites an appraisal that puts fair-market rent for the land at about $831,000 a year.

Commissioner Jeff Helmericks said the city must show the course is the land's best current use. If the course were not paying rent, he said, the city would have to pay to maintain the land. "At present that is the best value of that ground," he said.

Diumenti said that once the FAA settles the golf course rent, he wants to work out a five-year lease rate plan with other airport leaseholders.