The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday approved a 50-year ground lease with Sky Harbour, a White Plains, N.Y.-based aviation firm, to build a $60 million, five-hangar campus for private jets.
According to the agreement, the company will lease a 17-acre lot on the west side of the Long Beach Airport that will be constructed in several phases through spring 2028.
In the first year, the company will pay $29,778 a month — $48,389 in the second year. Once construction is completed, the company will pay $78,166 per month, with a 3% annual increase.
Once finished, the campus will include five aircraft hangars — around 43,000 square feet each — meant to hold up to 25 ultra-long range business jets. Each hangar will have a lounge and storage area, as well as office facilities and electric vehicle charging stations. An open-air restaurant will be on site that will be open to the public.
Eric Stolpman, the senior vice president with Sky Harbour, said in a phone call Friday that the campus is meant to capitalize on a national undersupply of hangar space.
Due to low availability, he explained, many of Southern California’s ultra-rich park their planes out of state in Utah, Arizona and Nevada, putting out of reach lofty fees and taxes that local governments could use for day-to-day services.
“By actually adding an aircraft hangar to the market, we’re rebasing some of those aircraft back to the place where the principals live,” he explained. “We believe that Long Beach is well-positioned today, but it’s also the future growth spot for the whole of Southern California, L.A. County (and) Orange County for business aviation.”
It’s the third location the company has in California, and nineteenth in the U.S., with other campuses in Denver, Seattle and Phoenix, among others that track further east.
At the council meeting Tuesday, council members applauded the deal as a worthy use of largely vacant land. The lot is used for events like the annual Festival of Flight aviation celebration, while Mercedes-Benz uses some of the land for storing vehicles.
Councilmember Megan Kerr said she was happy to see someone interested in the underused lot. There will be space elsewhere for the Festival of Flight, Kerr said.
The Long Beach Airport, which has been owned by the city for more than 100 years, handles about 3.7 million commercial passengers annually that account for about 16,000 to 17,500 takeoffs a year. Last year, the airport generated more than $63 million in operating revenues, serviced by Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest, UPS and Delta Air Lines.
According to the bid details, the city intends to sell off another parcel of airport land on the corner of Lakewood and Spring Street in the next two to three years.