Is it financially feasible to move the Naples Airport? Move study analysis has answer.

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• The Naples Airport Authority voted 3-1 to end a study on relocating the airport due to financial infeasibility.
• The NAA cited insufficient debt capacity and lack of external financial commitments as reasons for ending the study.

Two years and $400,000 later, a study on the idea of moving the Naples Airport out of the city is being putting to bed as not financially feasible.

Naples Airport Authority Board of Commissioners voted 3-1 to shelve the study, calling it concluded, after hearing from the airport authority’s (NAA) director of finance at its regular monthly meeting Thursday, June 19. Commissioner Robert Burns said he wasn’t ready to end the study and was the lone no vote. Chairwoman Rita Cuddihy was absent from the meeting.

“Our internal financial analysis says, you know, it’s not financially feasible for the authority to do it without significant commitments from the city, the county or other sources,” said Ken Warriner, the NAA’s senior director of finance and administration.

The exploratory study, also known as the move study, was conducted by Environmental Science Associates (ESA), hired in June 2023 by the NAA Board of Commissioners. In the first phase, ESA identified four possible locations in eastern Collier County that have the needed 1,800 to 2,400 acres; estimated total costs for both a general aviation airport like the Naples Airport and one with commercial airline services; and estimated a 15- to 20-year timeline to build a new airport at a cost of up to $2 billion, in current dollars.

What did the financial analysis entail?

In its analysis, NAA finance department staff used information gathered by ESA for Phase 1, spoke with other airport financial consultants and with finance directors for airports that have a similar number of passengers – 2 million – that a new commercial airport likely would have, Warriner said. Those airports were the Punta Gorda Airport and the Panama City airport, called the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport.

Warriner and staff didn’t pick one of the four locations identified in the ESA study but instead used a high and low for each of the general aviation and commercial options. Warriner, a certified public accountant, in January was named the 2024 Risk Management Professional of the Year award in the Small and Non-Hub Airport category by Airports Council International- North America (ACI-NA).

The analysis cost about $45,000 to $50,000 compared with the $350,000 to ESA for Phase 1 and its estimated $158,000 price tag for the financial analysis, according to NAA Director Communications Robin King.

Based on the airport authority’s ability to issue debt – only $15 million under its charter from the Florida Legislature in 1969; costs to buy land, mitigate for environmental and wildlife issues and construct an airport; estimated proceeds of selling the 732 acres on which the airport sits, most of which is owned by the City of Naples; and any estimates of reserves the NAA would have at the time of construction of facilities that don’t include the private hangars at Naples Airport now, Warriner concluded a funding shortfall of between $179.7 million and $1.2 billion.

The NAA has a 99-year, $99 pre-paid lease with the City of Naples that expires in 2068. The exploratory study came out of a $2 million noise study in 2019 to investigate the effects in and around the airport. Naples City Council has taken on the fight of some residents who say the noise from the airport has been increasing steadily and is dangerous to their health and disruptive to their quality of life in one of the country’s wealthiest cities. Ohers argue that the planes themselves actually are getting quieter the more modern they become.

‘No airport assets to utilize’

With that, three of the four NAA commissioners present June 19 said they had heard enough.

“The airport has no assets to utilize for financing a new airport,” said Vice Chairman Terrence Cavanaugh. “We don’t have enough debt capacity, and we don’t have enough cash flow, and therefore we have a current facility that is well run and state of the art. We have a 40-plus year lease ahead of us, a still comfortable time horizon, and an aviation community that is well satisfied with the asset that we oversee and govern. So, I think, with that. I would like to suggest we shelf this study.”

Burns disagreed, saying there might be partners in the community willing to help finance a new airport. There also might be those who would want to buy the land from the city if it were willing to sell, he said, and asked the NAA’s aviation attorney Peter Kirsch of Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell to look into whether that would be allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The conclusion was not financially feasible without significant financial commitments from the City of Naples or Collier County or other sources, so, I think it’s premature to say that the global view of how airports finance is impossible,’ Burns said. “It might be for us, but not necessarily if we have other willing partners. … I’m not ready to shelve the relocation study.”

The City of Naples hasn’t discussed or offered up any money to move the airport and Collier County Board of Commissioners members have said clearly several times that they aren’t interested in discussing moving the airport or having a role in it.

“You’re hearing from the three of us that we are comfortable,” Cavanaugh said. The other members voting to shelve the study were John Crees and Kerry Dustin. Board members are appointed by the Naples City Council.

“This creates a very strong completed project. … I think it’s a great product that provides visibility and complete facts for the community, for our elected officials and for ourselves.”