By Brian McBride
Associate Editor

After failing to escape the governor’s veto pen over a number of years, the Kissimmee Gateway Airport received $2 million this year from the $69.1 billion state budget to allow an aviation business park project to take flight and help create jobs.

The design, which was completed in 2001, calls for a 12-acre park with about 10 parcels of land on which about eight aviation-related businesses could build. Some examples, according to Airport Director Terry Lloyd, could be aviation maintenance shops, manufacturers of aviation components or specialized flight training, such as a jet training school.

Lloyd said the airport had been waiting since about 2003 for the appropriation.

“This is the first year it survived the governor’s veto pen,” Lloyd said. “I was pleasantly surprised. We always thought it was a good project.”

The $2 million will come from a trust fund in the state budget funded by tax revenue generated by aviation fuel sales.

Lloyd said he believed the project was passed this year with the influence and support of state Rep. Mike Horner, R-Kissimmee, in Tallahassee, who called the airport an “untapped economic engine.”

“I think the focus this year was job creation,” Horner said, explaining why he thought the money was budgeted this year. “I think the business air park will create jobs.”

The park would create up to 50 jobs with wages above the Osceola County average, Lloyd said. According to www.chooseosceola.com, which lists Osceola County demographics and statistics, the average annual salary in the county was $30,042, according to a 2007 study.

Some of the businesses that won’t be found at the park are normal flight schools and fixed-base operators because the airport already has enough of that type of commerce, Lloyd said. And he’s expecting high-end industry, “nothing equivalent of a hot dog stand,” he said.

First, the airport must conduct drainage work, run utilities out to the area and build a 1,000-foot long road connecting the park to Hoagland Boulevard. Lloyd said he expected to break ground on that work in September and have it completed by the end of this year or early 2012. Airport officials will have to re-examine the design plans to make sure they still comply with regulations set by the Federal Aviation Administration and South Florida Water Management District.

The businesses would have to build their own facilities and sign a lease with the city of Kissimmee.

The city’s economic development department will be used to solicit businesses, Lloyd said. One strategy is to market heavily at an aviation business conference coming to Orlando next year, Lloyd added.

The governor’s recent vetoes of $615 million worth of special-interest earmarks statewide included cutting $500,000 for the Osceola County Expressway Authority, $4,191,590 to finish the proposed new library/high tech building at Valencia Community College-Osceola campus and $350,000 for the Marydia Neighborhood Community Center in north Kissimmee.

Funding left intact, besides that for the airport, was an additional $1.36 million for workforce education programs at Technical Education Center Osceola. The additional money represents a 30.8 percent increase over current fiscal year funding. The increase is permanent, taking the county’s recurring funding to $5.8 million annually, which represents about 76.6 percent of need based on population growth.

Editor Marvin G. Cortner attributed to this report.