Eight years after it was conceived–and at almost three times its original cost–the future 15,000 square foot general aviation building at Flagler County Executive Airport finally got its ground ceremonially broken this morning before dozens of local officials and spectators. One conspicuous absence: Palm Coast officials, though they’d been invited.
“You can bring a horse to water…” said Roy Sieger, the airport director, who had no other explanation for Palm Coast’s absence.
The $11.2 million building is financed by a $5.6 million grant from the state Department of Transportation, a $5 million appropriation from the legislature, and $620,000 in local airport funds.
Former Speaker of the House Paul Renner, who represented Flagler County during his legislative tenure, acknowledged applause for his role in securing the legislative appropriation, without which the project might have been delayed further.
“You know, infrastructure is so important to our communities, and we’re never going to have a seaport, but we have an airport,” Renner said. “We should make it the best it can possibly be, because it will improve the economic development of our area, make Flagler a more attractive place for tourism and just everything that you can imagine.”
Enterprise Rent-A Car has a lot at the airport, and the county’s tourism office rents space in one of the airport buildings. Beyond that, the airport’s connection to tourism is limited to high-end visitors who like to fly in and out. There is no commercial aviation there. The new building is not expected to substantially change operations. It will not add commercial service, for example–or reduce flight-school activities, which have drawn criticism from a limited but persistent group of residents near the airport.
The building will replace an existing, four-decade-old metal structure, expand administrative office space and include a flight planning room, public and meeting space, and some leasable space for airport-related operations. The county has commonly referred to the building as a “terminal.” That’s a misnomer, since the airport does not have commercial passenger service. It would more accurately be termed an airside operations building.
The airport’s access road from State Road 100, currently a rickety U-shaped thing more reminiscent of the grounds as a World War II airfield than an “executive” airport, will be redesigned with a roundabout.
“It’s part of the continual improvements of the airport,” Dance said. “It’s focused on the fixed base operations of the airport, the future hangar, all related to improving the airport, the operations, and I think a more sophisticated clientele. As the county grows, we get a lot more inquiries about the airport.”
An example, Dance said, referring to the new condominium towers rising along the shore, “is the Ritz that’s being built in Hammock Dunes, as I understand it. People that are looking at purchasing into the Ritz have inquired about the airport.”
Sieger, on whose watch the airport has been continually transformed, described today’s occasion as “momentous” and a “capstone project.” The airport has been undergoing reconstruction since 2009. Some 56 projects included a new control tower, the reconstruction of every runway (one of them for $17 million), installation of new runway lights, building five new T hangars with 62 units, new aircraft aprons, and now the new operations building, all totaling $65 million.
“With the completion of this project, we will truly be an executive Airport. This facility will be a grand gateway into our community,” Sieger said. He doesn’t like it when the airport is referred to as Flagler County Airport, as residents used to the airfield’s former, and more hometown, name, still do. He prefers the more ostentatious Flagler Executive Airport, even though it, too, is a misnomer.
County commissioners, constitutional officers, a school board member (Derek Barrs, who’s about to assume a post in the president’s administration) and Bunnell’s city manager were all present for the groundbreaking. That made the absence of even a single Palm Coast official stand out.
The county did not take kindly to Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris’s suggestion a few weeks ago that the airport should be Palm Coast’s, anymore than the county had in 2010, when then Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon made noise about annexing the 1,500-acre county property. Norris was even more explicit than Landon had been, speaking of the county airport as Donald Trump has spoken of Greenland.
“I want our city to have the airport,” Norris said at an April 1 City Council meeting, sharply criticizing Sieger. “Me, I think, I think we should need to pressure the county into turning over the airport to us. That’s me personally. And I don’t know what kind of legal, you know, hurdles we’d have to go through to get to that, but we are losing a lot of economic opportunity by the county controlling that airport, and I think it’s poor administration. There’s stuff coming out there, and really, it should be under our city control. It’s not an enclave. It’s an island that is in our city. It should be our city airport.”
Norris was not at the groundbreaking today, though he’s been missing several of his own city’s events and meetings. (Flagler Beach officials were not there, either, but they were in a day-long goal-setting session.) Norris’s contention that the city is losing a lot of economic opportunities is inaccurate. The airport has been an economic development success story for the county. Sieger is imperious and has rubbed a few people the wrong way, though in comparison with Norris’s short tenure at City Hall, Sieger would win a Mr. Congeniality Award, and the successes at the airport are largely attributable to him and his command of airport management.
The county-owned airport is run as a so-called enterprise operation, meaning that it is self-sustaining. It generates money through fuel sales, hangar and office-space leasing, so no general fund (or property tax) dollars are involved.
The new building is expected to be operational at the end of 2026.
Zack says
They are too busy with the developers, trying to drain the wetlands and destroy our woodlands and wildlife!
B Slapper says
If you think the building of a multi million dollar terminal at the Flagler COUNTY airport
will only affect those homeowners who live near the airport THINK AGAIN! The negative
effects of the terminal will echo and reverberate throughout ALL of Palm Coast. The traffic
on SR 100 which is already intolerable will get even worst. In addition all the major roadways
throughout PC will become further congested as the increased traffic spills over from SR 100
to all major arteries. All this is due to the grubby greed of Roy Sieger and his pals Andy Dance,
Heidi Petito , Greg Hansen and former FCBOCC ‘s who want this expansion to entertain “executives”
from China and Middle Eastern countries who mostly hold shares in all these flight school mills.
Also expect more of these schools to join the growing armada of flight school mill invaders.
It’s laughable that in your comparison of Mayor Norris and Roy Sieger you put Sieger on a pedestal
and put down Mayor Norris who is for the people and puts his constituents first. Obviously you caved
into the powerful and money class in the county and folded like a cheap camera. Guess you are intimidated
by those who can shut you down. You’re no Benjamin Franklin.
P.S. You need to revisit your former articles regarding the numerous complaints against Sieger by
not only residents but his own tenants and former airport employees like Darryl Hickman and Les Asbend
who won a county court case against him as Sieger tried to shut down his first amendment rights and evict him
as a airport tenant due to their exposure of his mismanagement of our airport.