Commander Premier Aircraft Corporation To Leave Oklahoma City
By Month End
Commander Premier Aircraft Corporation (CPAC) announced Monday
it will leave the Okalahoma City area by the end of September and
establish new operations to produce Commander aircraft and support
the existing, world-wide Commander fleet at a new, undisclosed
location. CPAC acquired all of the assets of defunct Commander
Aircraft Company (CAC) from its chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee at the
end of June but the assets did not include the right to remain at
CAC's production facility at Wiley Post Airport.
"We are very disappointed that we could not secure a production
location at any airport in the Oklahoma City area," said Joel M.
Hartstone, CPAC's President and CEO. "Finding a new facility in
Oklahoma City has been one of our highest priorities since the
acquisition. This is where the folks who know how to build
Commanders live and the Bethany FAA Manufacturing and Inspection
District Office (MIDO) has regulated the production of Commander
aircraft since the aircraft was first produced. We are frustrated
and very sad that we must now abandon them and establish operations
elsewhere," Hartstone said.
When asked about possible locations in the area, Hartstone
pointed out that "there are two perfect facilities in Oklahoma
City, and both are presently empty and unused. We have been trying
for two months to secure one of these sites but the parties in
control of these facilities have chosen to let them remain empty
rather than lease them to CPAC. That's why we are forced to leave
the area and establish our new operations somewhere else."
The two sites CPAC referred to are the Gulfstream facility at
Wiley Post Airport and Downtown Airpark. The Gulfstream facility
consists of approximately 400,000 feet of space at the south end of
Wiley Post Airport. While the space has been empty for years,
Gulfstream's lease from the Airport Trust has approximately two
more years to run. The Gulfsream facility is just down the runway
from the former CAC facility at Wiley Post and a move into that
facility would facilitate a quick ramp up of operations for CPAC.
CPAC tried to sublease approximately 100,000 feet of that facility,
but Gulfstream has refused to sublease any portion of the facility
to CPAC. Instead, Gulfstream offered to surrender the lease to the
Airport Trust and pay off the related bond issue. However, as a
condition to the unwind, Gulfstream has insisted that Oklahoma City
indemnify it against any liability it might have for pollution or
hazardous waste on the property for which it could be liable based
on Gulfstream's prior ownership and/or use.
Gulfstream would have no such protection if the lease is
permitted to go for the full term. As a public body, the Airport
Trust does not believe it can take on Gulfstream's potential
liability for hazardous waste cleanup in order to gain early
control of the facility.
"It seems to us that Gulfstream overreached when it tried to use
the City's desire to keep CPAC in the area as a trading chip for a
complete release of pollution liability that it could never
otherwise obtain," Hartstone said. "Unfortunately for CPAC and all
of the former CAC employees that CPAC would have hired, Gulfstream
demanded something the City could not give it, so we will have to
move out of Oklahoma and the parties will remained deadlocked until
the lease expires," Hartstone added, "The irony is that Gulfstream
will remain responsible for pollution and hazardous waste and it
will still have to pay the remaining lease payments to discharge
the bond liability. Gulfstream will forgo the sublease rent we
would have paid and gain nothing. CPAC and the former CAC employees
lose and no one wins…it's a waste."
The other site, the Downtown Airpark, has been controlled for
decades by the Amos family. The facility has been under State Court
receivership, initiated by creditors of Downtown Airpark, Inc.
since the beginning of the summer. All former tenants have been
evicted and the facility is not presently being used. CPAC proposed
to lease all buildings from the receiver but the controlling
creditors would not agree to such an arrangement. "We believe that
the creditors were concerned about potential liability for
operating the airport's runways and taxiways," Hartstone
explained.
"While we don't believe that would have been a problem for them
with the airport operated by a receiver, we could not persuade them
to permit the receiver to lease the facility to CPAC," he added.
CPAC believes that the facility will sit idle until some real
estate developer decides to develop it for residential or
commercial use.
"The Downtown Airpark would have been a fine facility for us for
a few years," Hartstone said. "That would have given us and the
City time to arrange for a permanent home in Oklahoma City after
our lease for the Downtown Airpark was over. At the end of the
lease, the creditors still would have been able to use the land for
development, but the proposed relocation of I-40 to a position
closer to the Airpark would have been completed and the value of
the land for such development would have increased substantially.
It makes no sense to leave this facility sitting idle for three
years to wait for a developer when CPAC could have used it to
remain in Oklahoma City during such time."
Asked where CPAC plans to go, Hartstone stated that CPAC will
conclude negotiations concerning a small number of sites within the
next 10 days and will have an announcement shortly. "We still plan
to be out of the present facility by the end of this month. The
movers are packing us up now so we can make that schedule. Now that
we know we are not staying in Oklahoma City, we expect to wrap up
negotiations quickly and make an announcement soon."