Hangar space to be filled.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: North Bay

Air Base Property Corp. (ABPC) hopes to land another tenant for its last empty hangar at the Aerospace Centre by year's end.

"We're in the middle of negotiations with a prospect and hope to fill the vacancy," says Dave Butti, ABPC's board chairman of the Hangar Six property, a small 13,000-squarefoot building that was once part of the former airside assets of Canadian Forces Base North Bay.

"This deal we're working on, this (Canadian) company saw on opportunity and we're quite confident that we'll secure another tenant," says Butti, of the last serviced lot on site. Butti, who signed a non-disclosure agreement, is hopeful a deal will be finalized later this year.

The all-volunteer-driven, non-profit group has no staff, no administration and runs a virtual office that will disband once the last hangar is leased out with an option to buy.

"We've been doing this for seven years," says Butti, laughing. "We're looking at a window within the next two years that our mandate will have been met."

Formed in 1996 by appointees from the city, labour and the local chamber of commerce, the group faced down the Department of Defence's plans to bulldoze the hangars of the former Canadian Forces Base and created an aerospace industry that now employs 300 people.

Since ABPC took over the airside assets of the former CFB North Bay, four companies - Bombardier Aerospace, Lemex Aviation, Voyageur Airways and Wood Group Turbines - re-located plants to North Bay.

Vic Fedeli, ABPC's former chairman and the driving force behind the group, resigned in September 2002 and is considering a leading candidate to replace the retiring Jack Burrows as North Bay's mayor.

As the owner of 16 acres of buildings and property, Air Base Property Corp, is now a major stakeholder of the newly created North Bay Airport Authority, which came into existence in February 2003.

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