Small planes, big plans: new airport commission plans to use levelled space for hangars.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: PARRY SOUND

Once a sleepy Georgian Bay fly-in destination, expect the Parry Sound Area Municipal Airport to be buzzing with activity this summer as a $1.5 million expansion gets underway.

Not long ago, airport management received an unexpected gift in the wake of the Highway 69 reconstruction. The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) had earlier expropriated some airport land for use as a staging area for road contractors' equipment.

The six-acre bush plot, now cleared and levelled, has been returned to the airport commission. Officials there have big plans to use the highway-accessible property as the foundation for a proposed industrial park expansion.

A newly revitalized airport commission of motivated local volunteers has plans in the works to build between 15 and 20 light plane hangars on the reclaimed MTO property, addressing the current shortage of hangar space.

The commission is planning a June groundbreaking with the project expected to be completed by March 2006.

Some hangars would be privately owned, while others would be leased.

Airport commission chairman Doug Sainsbury, a Seguin Township councillor, says many private individuals are in the process of securing contractors. Once the surveying work is complete in May, they can move in and build.

The commission intends to expand their terminal building with a restaurant, add more airplane tie-downs to generate revenue, build an airport equipment hangar and to lease out a building to Found Aircraft for additional manufacturing space.

In handling about 2,000 landings per year, airport commissioner Rick McNabb estimates air traffic has increased 25 per cent per year over the last five years, coinciding with the explosion of cottage development around Parry Sound, Lake Rosseau, Lake Muskoka and Georgian Bay.

The commission's game plan is to make the facility financially self-sufficient within three years.

"We're really putting together a plan that has this thing paying its own way," says McNabb.

A good chunk of the airport's revenues--about 70 to 80 per cent--are raised from fuel sales, with the rest coming from land leases, aircraft tie-downs and overnight parking fees. The Township of Seguin and the Town of Parry Sound also cover some operational shortfalls.

With $600,000 in private investment pooled, the commission is waiting on FedNor and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund to each contribute $325,000 for the expansion project. It is expected to create between 15 and 20 new jobs at the terminal...