The future success of St. Cloud Regional Airport may be determined by a study proposed by the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp.

 

Last week, Patti Gartland, president of the organization, and board member Bryan Myres asked the Sherburne County Commissioners for their support in requesting $100,000 in funding to do the study.

 

About a year ago the airport received funding to begin twice-daily flights to and from Chicago on United Airlines through SkyWest.

Because of reliability issues, the service was suspended in April. Now, airport services are limited to Allegiant flights to Mesa AZ, military flights and occasional Sun Country charters.

 

“There’s been $71 million invested in that airport to date of federal, state and local money,” said Myres. “After daily service going away with United, what do we do with it?”

 

Myres said there is still opportunity for economic development.

 

“We know that daily service is a challenge. We also know that Allegiant is doing well in that space. There’s high satisfaction and a full load factor, so we know that is working,” he said. “We have a fixed operating base there that probably could do more, but we just don’t know what that potential is.”

 

Myres said there are opportunities for carrying air freight, corporate travel and other possibilities.

 

“But just what that is, we don’t know,” he said. “So that’s the point of the study.”

 

The St. Cloud Airport was built in 1970. Commercial services began in 1993 with the Northwest Airlink to Minneapolis.

 

After Delta merged with Northwest in 2008, commercial service ended until 2012 when Allegiant began flights to Mesa, AZ.

 

The airport has had over 71,000 passengers in the last two years. One big draw for the airport is convenience. Passengers have shorter travel time because of reduced traffic. It is especially convenient for Wright, Sherburne and Stearns County travelers who often spend two hours trying to get to the Twin Cities International Airport.

 

In 2013, there was talk of forming a regional air authority to take over the airport. So instead of funding coming just from the City of St. Cloud, all partners would contribute and reap the economic benefits. But with the suspension of the Chicago flights, that proposal is on hold.

 

“As a taxpayer I wouldn’t ask the commissioners to sign up for a regional air authority or any further investment by the City of St. Cloud until we know what its potential is,” said Myres.

 

“What brings us here today is advancing regional transportation. How we can grow utilization with that facility?” said Gartland. “This is about the bigger picture.”

 

She said there are 381 jobs - 89 at the airport facility between the military base and airport staff creating $10.11 million in wages, and $21.75 million in business sales.

 

She said there is potential for economic growth, but it would take a study to find out how much.

 

“The point of our presentation is to do an air transportation planning study and to get federal funding to do that,” said Gartland. “We’re asking the three counties to approve a resolution sponsoring the planning study funding request.

 

That would help secure third party expertise to undertake that planning study.”

 

The source of the funds are dollars the St. Cloud Area Planning Organization (APO) gets from the federal government. “It can only be used for planning studies, so these are not dollars that are being taken away from road improvement projects,” said Gartland. “They have to be used for studies.”

 

“I’m hearing that you already have a foregone conclusion of how the study is going to come out,” said Commissioner Rachel Leonard. “The study could be on the negative side.”

 

Myres said they don’t know how the study will come out. But he felt it was necessary before anyone gave any more support.

 

“Why would we want to invest in something that doesn’t make economic sense? We know there’s been $71 million invested in this. If we are going to do something different, there better be an economic reason for doing it,” he said. “The business community, APO and government officials want to make sure it’s not a biased study.”

 

The board passed the resolution of support. But it does not guarantee the organization will get money from the APO, said Gartland, since other organizations are also requesting funding for other planning projects.