Florida Airport Now Eyes Quartet of Moving Options

Naples Airport has been handed four prospective sites to move into throughout its local county, but uprooting the entire operations won't come cheap or quick.

Overall, Naples Airport management is evidently planning for the move to cost something around $800 million to $1.2 billion and not be complete until 2040 - and that's just the plan, imagine how bad reality will be! The airport doesn't seem to have a whole lot of choice, however. Naples Airport, in the grand tradition of small airfields across America, was originally founded as a military facility during the war, allowing it to spring up with a good foundation, generous runways, and a well-planned layout. And, as is tradition throughout the metropolitan USA, Naples has been slowly encroached upon by throngs of developers, homes and businesses which now seek to snuff it out of operation. It's the usual thing, where recent additions to the area suddenly become "locals" and complain that their affordable land and housing inconveniently abuts an airfield. The city is probably just as eager to give Naples Airport the boot too, since the self-sustaining Naples Airport leases its land from them to the tune of one whole US dollar a year.

While the idea of moving an airport is somewhat novel compared to simply closing it down, Naples seems to think there's some upside to making the change. Changing locales would give them room to breathe and expand, open up commercial services, and just maybe buy a few years of peace from whining neighbors (until the sprawl cycle begins anew.) The Airport has been offered 4 sites that could fit its needs, should the Naples Airport Authority Board of Commissioners decide to uproot everything with the FAA's blessing. Site A is a plot East of the county landfill, about 9 miles away and due east of the field. Site B is Lipman Farms, about 11 miles Southeast. C is the "Sunrise Land", about 23 miles to the Northeast of Naples, with the last, Site D, 7 miles past that at Immokalee Regional Airport. 

FMI: https://www.flynaples.com