It's been 25 years since Ohio State University tried to close its airport on the Northwest Side and sell it to developers.
That didn't happen, but similar thoughts are emerging again. University officials have started a review of their options for the airport, Don Scott Field, including a possible sale.
Already, OSU has decided to sell its parking operations to an outside company in a deal that's expected to generate more than $375 million for the university -- money that will be used to benefit the school's core mission of teaching, officials said.
But officials will have a much more complicated set of issues to consider when looking at the future of the airport. It is one of Ohio's busiest airports in terms of takeoffs and landings despite having no regular commercial flights.
During the next six months or so, OSU will study whether it should strike some sort of deal for the airport it has owned and operated for almost 70 years.
Any deal involving the airport will have to address several key issues: its role in OSU's aviation-studies curriculum; federal restrictions based on money received for land and improvements there; and long-simmering friction with some of the airport's neighbors.
In addition, it's frequented by corporate jets used by companies including Cardinal Health, Honda and Worthington Industries.
"It's a political hot potato," said one insider, who declined to be named because of his ties to the university.
The airport has 55 full-time employees, with a payroll of about $1.8 million, airport director Doug Hammon said. It also employs about 24 students. Hammon said he is aware of about two dozen other university-owned airports across the country, only a handful of which --including OSU's and Ohio University's -- are actually operated by the institution.
Hammon teaches courses in aviation management at the airport, where students can get hands-on experience that leads to job offers upon graduation, he said. The airport also has flight training courses for students and the public, and it recently launched a research initiative called the Center for Aviation Studies, thanks in part to a $2 million gift from business-jet operator NetJets, which is based in Columbus.
The airport's neighbors have fought bitterly over the past decade about noise and development plans.
"It's become this thing that it was not meant to be. It was meant to be for student training," said Jane Weislogel, vice president of We Oppose Ohio State Airport Expansion, a community group formed about eight years ago.
Weislogel, who lives just northwest of the airport, emphasized that she doesn't want to close it. She is a trained pilot who graduated from OSU in 1962 and was once married to the head of OSU's aviation department, Stacy Weislogel.
Other neighbors aren't so upset.
Alan Harding, a pilot and president of the Ohio Aviation Association, lives across the street from the airport and has kept his small plane there since 1978. He was a co-founder of Columbus Flight Watch, a group formed in the mid-1980s to counter OSU's plan at that time to close the airport.
"There are 40,000 people living within 5 miles of the airport. There are six who don't like the airport," Harding said, contending that most noise complaints have been from the same handful of people.
OSU spokeswoman Shelly Hoffman confirmed that the airport is under review, but she said it's too early to speculate about what, if any, changes might be recommended.
Hammon said he hopes OSU will consider the plan developed several years ago to expand its operations over the next few years, a plan that the Federal Aviation Administration signed off on.
One of the main factors that makes the airport attractive to corporate travelers -- its proximity to the upscale suburbs of Upper Arlington, Worthington and Dublin -- also makes it attractive to developers.
The airport's 1,400 acres were valued at more than $100 million in the mid-1980s when OSU wanted to sell the land; today, the assessed value is more than $150 million.
The FAA, backed by hundreds of letters from locals opposed to the proposed closing, stopped OSU from shutting down the airport 25 years ago. The federal government's rationale for its stance likely hasn't changed since then: The airport has received millions of dollars in FAA grants to buy land and build runways, which carry with them a promise to keep the airport open.
But change at the OSU airport doesn't necessarily have to come in the form of a closing or redevelopment.
The airport operation itself could be an attractive target. Companies interested in buying the rights to the terminal operation -- in aviation parlance, a fixed-base operator -- for more than $10 million have made casual overtures in recent years, which OSU rebuffed, people familiar with the talks said.
Hammon said he "wouldn't be surprised" if this option is looked at in OSU's review, but he added that he's not aware of any serious conversations about it in the past.
Another attractive option to a private company could be the rights to the current hangars and development rights to future hangars. OSU has a waiting list of dozens of individuals and companies that would like hangar space at the airport.
A private company would likely want to build up business to increase revenue, a move that airport-growth opponents would fight.
"We'd be very concerned about that," Weislogel said. "Even as the aviation program (at OSU) has been downgraded and downgraded, they say they have to bring in these corporate jets," she said.
Business advocates disagree about the role the airport should play for the community at large.
"The airport is very important to us," said Colleen Gilger, economic-development manager for the city of Dublin. "We promote our proximity to it in our business-attraction efforts, and we are aware of a number of companies that rely on it."
Back in the 1980s, Bolton Field was proposed as an alternative location for the university aviation operations. The South Side general-aviation airport is relatively lightly used and doesn't make money for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, said David Whitaker, vice president of business development for the authority. He said there have been no recent discussions about OSU using Bolton.
It's not an attractive option for businesses, Harding said, adding that minutes matter to companies using corporate planes.
"It would be a disaster to lose this airport," Harding said. "There's just no replacement for it."
