Water Valley developer Martin Lind of Windsor is close to buying the jet center at the Fort Collins-Loveland airport, likely clearing the way for future development and improvements at the municipally owned airport. For months, Lind has been working on a 225-acre Airpark of the Rockies development just off airport grounds that would include a fixed-base operator, or FBO, to provide fuel, oxygen, catering and a restaurant. But that would have put him in competition with the existing jet center at the airport. So, instead of adding competition, Lind wants to buy it. Negotiations with Cordillera Corp. of Englewood, which owns jet centers at Fort Collins-Loveland, Centennial, Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City airports, are expected to close in September, Lind said. Cordillera Corp. officials were not available for comment. "Two FBOs over there competing for a limited amount of services didn't make any sense," Lind said.
The jet center sells roughly 600,000 gallons of jet fuel, hardly enough to support two fixed-base operators, airport manager David Gordon said.
Lind’s purchase of the jet center “is a better alternative ... until there’s enough business to support two,” Gordon said.
But the biggest advantage to Lind’s proposal “is that Martin Lind is a very well-known, reputable and successful developer and he’s local,” Gordon said.
“He loves aviation, has his corporate aircraft based at the airport and is interested in seeing the airport realize its maximum potential.”
Only the cities of Fort Collins and Loveland now stand between Lind and development.
As airport owners, the two cities are in the process of approving a so-called “through the fence” agreement that allows businesses at Airpark of the Rockies to use the runways and taxiways.
They also need to OK a metro district Lind has offered to create to collect a percentage of the assessed value of the property and share revenue with the airport, giving it the ability to qualify for larger federal grants and possibly become self-supporting.
“The through-the-fence agreement will give Martin the opportunity to develop his property, and he very much wants to do aviation type of development,” said Mike Freeman, Fort Collins’ chief financial officer.
“It will be a catalyst to that property and that project will spur more airport development longer term and drives the need for the FBO services to be upgraded.”
If Lind buys the jet center, construction on the rest of the project will likely begin in the spring. The jet center, which has been open since the 1960s, would also get an overhaul.
According to Lind’s projections, Airpark of the Rockies — his tentative name for the project — could provide up to 2,000 well-paying jobs and more than $90,000 in tax revenue to the airport next year, an amount that could grow to more than $320,000 by 2017 as the airpark develops. |
