Patrons optimistic about Tacoma Narrows Airport's future

In some objective ways, business at Pierce County’s Tacoma Narrows Airport has never been more tepid.

Air traffic at the single-runway general aviation airport on the Gig Harbor Peninsula has fallen to levels not seen since the early ’80s. Some 50 percent of the tie-downs for smaller aircraft are vacant. Twenty-five percent of the hangars are empty.

Flight training activity has declined to a fraction of what it was in the ’90s. And the airport’s 5,002-foot runway is badly in need of maintenance.

But talk with those who use the airport and they are far more optimistic about the airport’s future than those difficult facts would suggest.

Mike Pickett, for instance, speaks well of the airport’s new administration and the changes it is planning for the airport.

Pickett has 30 years of experience at Tacoma Narrows as co-owner of Pavco Flight Center. He’s seen countless managers, consultants and administrators try to tap the airport’s potential, most of them without success.

The airport opened nearly 50 years ago with great fanfare and expectations. For most of that half century, the field was owned by the City of Tacoma. Three years ago, Pierce County bought the airport from the city with the promise that it would focus more intensely on the airport than its prior owner had done.

Pickett, not easily impressed by hollow promises, is encouraged by the enthusiasm and energy that the airport’s new owner is devoting to the airport.

“The county’s been a better owner,” said Pickett. “They’ve made a fantastic effort.”

“They were a little slow at first getting things rolling, but I think their heart’s in the right place,” he said. “They’re certainly better than the city.”

The City of Tacoma had always struggled to embrace the airport and aviation interests. The airport is located on the west side of the Tacoma Narrows, outside city boundaries. The city had no control over the land planning near the airport, and no real place for the airport in its bureaucratic structure. The airport under city ownership was managed by several departments during its tenure. Among those departments were the city’s Transit and Public Works department. The city also hired outside consultants to administer the airport.

The Tacoma Narrows Airport is not alone in feeling the recession’s slap. Airports and general aviation around the country have seen a substantial decline.

Pickett and others have hope that once the economy revives fully, business will improve. They have particularly good words to say about Deb Wallace, a former state legislator, economic development manager and Transit planner who moved to the Puget Sound area from Vancouver, Wash. Wallace took over as the county’s airports and ferries administrator seven months ago.

Under Wallace, the county has signed up a new operator for the airport restaurant, has begun initial work on an updated master plan for the airport and has negotiated with the Federal Aviation Administration to fund a long-overdue resurfacing and repair of the airport’s runway.

That $5 million project is due to begin in early fall. It could close the airport to takeoffs and landings for several weeks.

That runway rehabilitation will include shrinking the runway from 150 feet wide to just 100 feet, a move that Wallace said she at first opposed.

“At first that just seemed crazy,” she said. But as she considered the FAA’s rationale for the width reduction, it made more sense.

The FAA said the airport’s traffic and usage pattern didn’t justify a wider runway. If the county wanted a wider runway, it would have to pay the extra costs itself. The county didn’t have the extra funds.

Reducing the runway width also will cut the county’s costs for stormwater drainage, she said.

A narrower runway is still wide enough for the sport and corporate planes the county wants to attract to Tacoma Narrows, but it’s marginal for larger airliners that the airport’s neighbors have always feared would begin using the facility.

Warren Hendrickson, chairman of the Narrows Airport Advisory Commission and a former Delta Air Lines pilot, said he’s disappointed that the runway will be shrunk, but he understands the reasoning behind the change.

A wider runway allows more room for error, particularly when there’s a strong crosswind at landing, he said.

Pickett said he too is concerned that the runway dimension will diminish.

“I don’t know how many pilots would have gone into the grass over the years if the runway was narrower,” he said.

In any case, he’s glad to see the runway will be repaved, even if that means several weeks of diminished activity at Tacoma Narrows.

Wallace said the county is trying to schedule the repaving so that part of the runway could remain open for smaller aircraft while the other portion is being repaved.

David Polley of Quality Airframe Maintenance, said he gives the county credit for a sharper focus on the airport. The county, he said, has spent more time getting to know the business people and the airport users than the city did.

“This is an amazing airport,” he said. “I’d like more people to know about it,”

One of the airport’s major shortcomings is its runway length. At 5,002 feet long, the runway is long enough to allow corporate jets to take off but without a full load of fuel.

That fact creates extra cost for jet owners who have to stop on long trips to refuel instead of flying nonstop.

“Over the years, I know that several corporate jet owners who considered basing their planes here who went elsewhere because of the shorter runway,” said Pickett.

Lengthening the runway has always been a concern for airport neighbors who fear a longer runway will be an invitation for airlines to begin service at Tacoma Narrows. During its lifetime, Tacoma Narrows has briefly hosted commercial service several times, but it always faded away.

Hendrickson said he doubts Tacoma Narrows will ever host larger commercial operators. The airport’s airspace is too congested by its proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Sea-Tac Airport.

“I know from my experience working with Horizon Air that if they started serving someplace in addition to Sea-Tac, they’d pick somewhere farther from Sea-Tac like Paine Field in Everett or Olympia,” he said.

Lengthening the runway by several hundred feet, said Wallace, is among dozens of possibilities that could be considered in the master planning process, said Wallace. That extension would allow corporate jets to take off with a full fuel load. But by using a displaced runway threshold for landing to effectively shorten the field on landing, the effect of landing on nearby neighborhoods would be no greater than now.

Roger Gruener, the owner of a refuse company and a near-airport homeowner, said he’s unconcerned about the possibility that the airport may become a departure point for airline flights.

“It’s not something to be feared,” he said. “The airport is a very valuable asset, but as a general aviation airport.” Gruener is vice chairman of the Tacoma Narrows Airport Advisory Commission.

Besides the master planning effort and the runway rehabilitation, the county wants to spruce up the airport’s aesthetics to make it appealing to corporate visitors who will be arriving to attend the U.S. Open golf tournament in 2015 at the county’s Chambers Bay course.

“We’ve talked with other airports in communities that have hosted the U.S. Open,” said Wallace. “They’ve told us to expect up to 100 corporate jets for the event.”

As it is presently configured, the airport can’t handle that number of larger planes, she said. But the county wants to be prepared to host a majority of those aircraft.

Hendrickson, the advisory commission chairman, said the commission is seeking to create a lay “Friends of Tacoma Narrows Airport” group that could raise funds and do work at the airport to increase its public appeal.

“Some airports in California, for instance, have created attractive picnic areas where members of the public could have a lunch and watch the activity,” he said.

At Reflections at the Airport, general manager Jacques Henry said the county has worked closely with him and his parents to reopen the airport restaurant.

That restaurant, which opened in October, has attracted a diverse clientele ranging from Gig Harbor residents to pilots and traveling pilots.

“We got a late start because we had a lot of rehab work to do here in the building,” he said.

“We think business will grow even stronger as the weather improves.”

Pickett said much of the malaise surrounding the aviation business at the airport is out of the airport owner’s control. The general economy will have to revive for traffic and fuel sales to revive, but an improved airport is likely to attract more business once the economy sweetens.

Wallace said she has high hopes that the county may soon sign a lease with a new corporate client which will house its corporate aircraft at the airport. That relocation from another local field could involve construction of a new hangar.

“I think Tacoma Narrows has a great future ahead. We’re all working hard to make it happen,” she said.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com.