Housing crunch and merril field (Anchorage, Barrow: how much, taxi, maintenance)

[pittsflyer]

Does anyone know if the city has ever considered turning merril field into housing developments?

Does the city own Merril and could they do this?

[Braje]

Why would they do that?
from General Information
Operations

Merrill Field has ranked among the busiest airports in the nation for several years. Activity peaked in 1984 when the field was ranked 15th in the nation. In 2010, Merrill Field was the 72nd busiest airport in the nation with 144,892 flight operations.

[pittsflyer]

Are you sure you are not confusing that with lake hood which is connected to anchorage international. I know lake hood was the busiest sea plane base but I never heard about merril.

Also busyness does not always translate to revenue or benefit to the city overall.

Originally Posted by Braje

Why would they do that?
from General Information
Operations

Merrill Field has ranked among the busiest airports in the nation for several years. Activity peaked in 1984 when the field was ranked 15th in the nation. In 2010, Merrill Field was the 72nd busiest airport in the nation with 144,892 flight operations.

[AKStafford]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

Are you sure you are not confusing that with lake hood which is connected to anchorage international. I know lake hood was the busiest sea plane base but I never heard about merril.

Also busyness does not always translate to revenue or benefit to the city overall.

No confusion. Merrill Field is one of the busiest general aviation fields in the nation. Spend 10 minutes in the parking lot of the Northway Mall and you'll see the traffic.
It is owned by the Muni, but there's no way they'd close it down. There'd be a riot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Field

[Alaskan Mutt]

Merrill Field is here to stay. If it was closed there is no way Anchorage int'l could absorb all of the general aviation traffic and still function. Birchwood is nowhere big enough to even consider taking the overflow. Not sure if Palmer could be expanded enough. Thus a new airport would have to be built somewhere. General aviation in Alaska is too important to locate the airport 1 to 2 hours away from Anchorage.

[pittsflyer]

How much actual legitimate commerce is going on at Merril? I would think the majority of that would go out of international. I have driven around that area a bit but most of the air traffic I see appears to be joy riding not commercial flights. I put in a suggestion to the muni because it seems like a lot of space being taken up for very little actual genuine commerce. But I could be wrong.

[BarrowWx]

If Merrill Field was shut down, I don't think Anchorage international would be able to accommodate all the air traffic Merrill receives with all the cargo planes and out of state/international flights. Basically it could make one big clusterf*** and possible decrease revenue since the airport is not big enough to receive every plane. Also, Merrill Field has a taxiway that goes all the way to Alaska Regional Hospital for the medevacs.

[Chilkoot]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

How much actual legitimate commerce is going on at Merril? I would think the majority of that would go out of international. I have driven around that area a bit but most of the air traffic I see appears to be joy riding not commercial flights. I put in a suggestion to the muni because it seems like a lot of space being taken up for very little actual genuine commerce. But I could be wrong.

Revenue from Merrill Field is less than 4 million per year, not much really. Besides the overwhelming negative response to creating housing there, there are 150,000 take offs/landings each year. There are also over 40 aviation business located there and 900 based aircraft. And as BarrowWX noted, it’s also one of the few airports in the nation to have a taxiway directly to a hospital.

There is nowhere close that could handle that many aircraft. Ted Steven’s International wouldn’t be able to absorb that many.

[pittsflyer]

Ted Stevens is class C and the tower would not have to absorb everyone. I would think the hand full of actual genuine commercial operators could relocate to lake hood/international. I have never once seen a medevac plane or chopper out of merril or regional but I have seen plenty of joy riding. I take that back I seen one over eagle river one day but they could have been going to providence too since it was a chopper.

So the muni makes almost no money off of it and it facilitates very little legitimate public commerce. Why would there be a negative response to building housing there? Would people not want to build there?

I have driven through merril a few times and I see TONS of private aircraft and I think one time I saw a commercial flight out of there, ever. So why is the muni and everyone else subsidizing private aircraft to have a base of operations to joy ride out of?

[BarrowWx]

A section of Merrill Field was also built on top of a closed landfill and so it needs constant maintenance due to settling, not very good to build housing on top of it. Also, just because you don't see medevacs doesn't mean they don't land there, unless hundreds of people a day need to be medevac'd out of the bush. It's not going away