MONROE — Daryl Habich went to take flying lessons in 1968 after a private airport opened next door to the Evergreen State Fairgrounds.
Within a few years, the dentist bought First Air Field from the original owner. After three decades, though, Habich is ready to sell the 32-acre property, spurred on by health problems and a need for money. He’s been shopping it around for the past few years.
He’s asking about $6 million.
“As long as it’s mine, it’ll be an airport,” Habich said. “I would like to see it as an airport. If I don’t own it, I don’t have any control over that.”
A few potential buyers sounded interested, he said, but none has made an offer.
Snohomish County is among the parties that have considered buying the airport, partly because the airfield sits right across the street from the county-owned fairgrounds’ north entrance. The county parks department included the property in a list of possible acquisitions in its long-term fairgrounds plans. For now, other improvements at the fairgrounds are more pressing, county spokesman Christopher Schwarzen said.
“There is no plan at this point for its potential use,” Schwarzen wrote in an e-mail. “It’s simply listed in the plan (because) it is for sale.”
Throughout the country, the number of airports has been shrinking. There were 5,202 public-use airports in the U.S. last year, compared to 5,352 a decade earlier, Federal Aviation Administration figures show.
That has pilots worried.
“We continue to lose airports, in 2008, at just over one per month,” said Chris Dancy, a spokesman with the Frederick, Md.-based Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. “The problem is, when an airport closes, it almost never reopens.”
General aviation airports are “often the front door to the community” and a vital part of the local economy, said Paul Meyers, a principal with Centennial, Colo.-based Aviation Management Consulting Group.
“The people who are flying in and out are often the movers and shakers coming into the community and making business decisions,” Meyers said.
As general-aviation airports close, more people use commercial airports such as Sea-Tac International Airport, adding to congestion, Meyers said.
First Air Field is privately owned, but open to public use. A future owner could bring in revenue by renting space to an aviation-related business or “fixed-base operator” in aviator speak. Other sources of income could be fuel sales, leasing hangar space and tie-down fees. The current $5 tie-down fee has been less than some of the nearby fees for parking cars during the Evergreen State Fair, Habich said.
“It’s cheaper to fly in than it is to drive in,” he said.
First Air Field has a 2,087-foot paved runway. Like most smaller airports, it lacks a control tower. More that 70 airplanes are based there.
First Air, which averages about 50 takeoffs and landing per day, is smaller than Harvey Field in Snohomish and Arlington Municipal Airport.
The purchase price for First Air Field includes Habich’s house and a feature that few other airports can claim: a dental office. Habich, 65, a retired dentist, now rents the office to colleagues.
“I think we might be the only dental office that’s right on an airport,” he said.
If the current owner had his way, the property would stay an airport. But there’s no guarantee it won’t some day become a parking area for the fairgrounds, a housing subdivision or a business park.
Finding a buyer could be difficult, said Andrew Max with RE/MAX Northwest Realtors in Kirkland.
“There aren’t many airfields that come up, and you are really looking for a unique buyer,” Max said.
Making a sale would probably require international marketing and listing the property to niche aviation groups, he said.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465 or nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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