Just Askin': Why did the Blue Ash Airport close?
Editor's note: Misspellings of Lunken Airport and another phrase were corrected.
The Enquirer's Just Askin' series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, not even Google.
For over 90 years, the frequent sounds and sights of airplanes taking off and landing at the airport were part of everyday life in Blue Ash.
That was until the Blue Ash Airport closed in 2012 after a decline in use. If you ask Marc Sirkin, Blue Ash city councilman, it was a sad loss for the community. He was a private pilot and kept his own plane at the airport.
"A lot of people thought it was a fun little niche," Sirkin said. "There were more people to sad to see it go than people who were annoyed about the noise."
Now the Glendale-Milford Road property is Summit Park, a 130-acre recreational wonderland that features a dog park, playgrounds, fishing pond, an observation tower and more. It's known for its on-site entertainment and dining options, plus an attached mixed-use development that brought housing and retail to the outskirts of the park.
It was never a big commercial enterprise, because there was really no space for them. Couple that with local politics and operations at the Blue Ash Airport permanently grounded Aug. 29, 2012.
Why did the Blue Ash Airport close?
Cincinnati owned the Blue Ash Airport, city officials started showing signs they didn't want to operate it anymore and focus their efforts on its other municipal airport, Lunken. Cincinnati sold 130 of the 230 acres to Blue Ash in 2007 for $37.5 million to construct a public park. In 2012, the airport officially closed.
The Blue Ash Airport was home to the Blue Ash Airport Days annual summer event. It featured an air show, a memory many hearken back to when the airport comes up in conversation, according to Sirkin.
Nostalgic events weren't enough to make the airport work, though. Aging facilities and crumbling runways weren't being fixed, and federal grants to fix them were expiring. It was underused for the size of the airport, according to Cheryl Popp, Honor Flight Tri-State board chair and former Blue Ash Airport user.
When it was founded in 1921, it was thought it would someday be the area's largest airport. Its size never really allowed for large aircraft, though, and eventually Northern Kentucky took that prize when Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International airport, better known as CVG, opened there.
Blue Ash still remained in operations, but most of the people you'd find hanging around were recreational pilots. It was an uphill battle for the five years before the airport closed, as pilots were enlisting in help from outside organizations to save it. Matters were complicated by the municipal ownership, and by extension, the slow-turning wheels of government bureaucracy.
"It had always been a problem, because city of Cincinnati owned it, but Blue Ash held its permits," Popp said. "So it was politics at its finest.”
Cincinnati in 2017 sold the remaining 98 acres next to Summit Park to development firm Al. Neyer. The price tag was $8.3 million plus $1.35 per square foot of office space per year for 20 years. There the firm constructed Neighborhoods at Summit Park, which features mixed-use retail and housing.
Cincinnati used proceeds from the land sales to fund its streetcar project.
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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why did Blue Ash Airport stop operations?
