Business View Magazine | August 2019

153 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 “They leased all the property and paved the runways, built the terminal, and of course, they had barracks at the time,” says Airport Manager, Lisa Poole. “They were there until 1947, when they turned it back over to Gainesville. They leased it for a dollar and then gave it back to us with all the improvements.” In 1971, the Airport was named in honor of local aviation pioneer, Lee Gilmer, who owned and operated Gilmer Flying Services before, during, and after World War II. Over the years, many improvements were made at the Airport with funds from the FAA, the State of Georgia, the Appalachia Fund, and the City of Gainesville, including relocating beacons, marking and extending the runways, constructing a parallel taxiway, and updating all of the navigational devices. Today, The Airport covers an area of 359 acres with two asphalt runways: 5/23 measuring 5,500 by 100 ft. and 11/29 measuring 4,001 by 100 ft. Poole is the Airport’s only employee; all others work for the aviation-based businesses on property. “We have the FBO, Champion Aviation, that runs the daily operations,” she relates. “They have a staff of, four, and offer fuel, tie downs, rental cars, and catering. We also have Lanier Flight Center; they offer fuel, flight training, charters, aircraft leasing, and they also have a maintenance facility, as well. So, we have a significant staff on the airfield – just not directly employed by the city.” “We have 139 home-based aircraft; we’re ranked 5th in Georgia for general aviation airports,” Poole adds. “And I have 60 people on the waiting list for T-hangars, but we’re at capacity on our footprint. We have 13 corporate hangars, and for the last one that was built, we had to tear down one of the old World War II maintenance hangars in order for them to build that. So, we have one ground lease, and everything else is city-owned and leased.” While the demand is there, Poole explains that the land simply isn’t available for more hangar construction at the current time. “We want to add more based corporate users,” she continues. “We have a large based general aviation population and we have a significant corporate travel population, but we need to obtain property. We LEE GI LMER MEMOR I AL A I RPORT