EVERETT — Snohomish County leaders must soon decide a contentious issue at Paine Field.
This time, it has nothing to do with commercial passenger flights, but whether land on the west side of the county-run airport is better suited for corporate jets or for historic aviation attractions on a grand scale.
John Sessions has been asking the county to join in his vision for a historic aviation campus. Nearly two years later, he’s still waiting for a commitment.
“Pretty soon, we’d be well served to call the question and decide,” Sessions told County Council members Monday.
He offered a rebuttal to concerns that airport staff have raised about his plans. The aircraft collector called in an economist and the Federal Aviation Administration’s former chief legal counsel to help make his case during a special meeting.
The County Council in late 2013 agreed to give Sessions six months to develop a plan. He delivered a proposal in mid-2014, but things remain in limbo.
The historic aviation campus would expand on Sessions’ Historic Flight Foundation museum on Bernie Webber Drive.
For the plan to work, the county would need to lease the historic flight team the land for free or a substantially reduced rate. Sessions has said that the county could make up the money it would forgo through an admissions tax.
Councilman Brian Sullivan supports Sessions’ plan. Sullivan hopes to bring it to a vote soon, but isn’t sure when. Monday’s meeting, he said, was intended to give his colleagues facts to make an informed decision. Airport administrators were not invited to speak.
“Quite honestly, we’re not getting the straight story from the airport staff,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan earlier this month accused airport staff of meddling in policy by presenting with little advance notice a study critical of Sessions’ plan.
Airport Director Arif Ghouse wrote an apology to council members two days later, saying he misunderstood the purpose of the earlier meeting. He said he had presented a draft economic study that should have been reviewed by Executive John Lovick’s administration and others.
Ghouse has said the county risks losing out on FAA grants if it leases land at sub-market rates. He said Sessions’ proposal could jeopardize the airport’s relationship with other attractions, which pay standard rents. Ghouse also said there’s competing interest for the same land from companies that want to build corporate jet hangars.
Earlier, he had called the Sessions plan a “really bad proposal” for the airport.
Sessions and his team responded Monday.
They said there’s little demand to house more corporate jets at Paine Field. FAA figures show 11 stationed there, where there are already 21 hangars.
An economist working for Sessions said the airport’s study overstated benefits from serving corporate jets. There’s also space to do both.
“It has presented the county with a false choice — it’s not an either-or decision,” said Michael Wilkerson from ECONorthwest.
Still, doubts seem to have stuck.
Council Chairman Dave Somers has said he has questions about the business case and that he’s getting mixed messages about the FAA’s position on grants.
An attorney also spoke Monday to draw attention to a lawsuit involving the contentious relationship between Historic Flight Foundation and a corporate jet hangar next door.
Everett Hangar is a subsidiary of a large Kirkland-based apartment property management firm called Weidner Investment Services, which has holdings in several U.S. states and Canadian provinces. It has leased the land next door to Historic Flight Foundation since 2008 and bases two corporate jets there.
In a lawsuit filed in Snohomish County Superior Court in 2014, Everett Hangar alleges that Historic Flight has impinged on its right to use a taxiway by parking aircraft there. The hangar company also accuses the museum of creating security risks by failing to prevent festival patrons from wandering through its property or onto airport runways.
“Our concern is that the proposed campus has the same potential for operational and safety problems that the Historic Flight Foundation has had and continues to have,” said attorney Warren Rheaume from the Seattle law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.
Everett Hangar won an injunction and $860,000 judgment after a bench trial earlier this year. That outcome is under appeal. Sessions called the lawsuit a separate issue from the proposed aviation campus.
Plans for the project call for five new buildings averaging 30,000 square feet along taxiway Kilo 7. Sessions, who works in real estate development, said he would like to start construction on the first building in 2017 and then complete about one per year until the project is built out.
There would be space for new museums, as well as restoration shops and perhaps an educational center.
Existing tourist attractions at the airport include the Future of Flight and Boeing Tour, Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection and Museum of Flight Restoration Center.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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