Commander Premier expected to be out before air show

Commander Premier Aircraft Corp. has finally started moving out of its hangar at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, just in time for this year's air festival.

The city of Cape Girardeau evicted the company in October 2011 after Commander failed to make lease payments going back to 2007. The company began business at the airport in 2005 with plans to establish a small plane production company and hire 100 people within three years, but never produced any aircraft.

The city has been working for years to remove Commander from the 52,000-square-foot hangar, a process that became complicated when the company filed for bankruptcy nearly three years ago. The arrival of the Canadian Snowbirds, the headlining act for the 2014 Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival, increased the pressure to clear out the area since it would be needed to store planes and equipment for the act.

City manager Scott Meyer said he's not certain exactly how much has been moved from the hangar, but knows several tractor trailers have been loaded and left for Oklahoma. He said there's "certainly optimism" that most of the equipment will be moved out by the air show May 17 and 18, but there's no guarantee "everything's going to be out."

As the company finally begins the process of vacating the area, Meyer said marketing the hangar will become much easier.

"We would be looking to market it -- and have been marketing it -- but once it's empty it's a lot easier to market," he said.

It's been difficult to garner interest in the building since there was no guaranteed date when it would be available, but Meyer said he hopes to see that change now.

"When you have somebody that's interested and they come and see a bunch of stuff there and ask, 'Well, when is this stuff going to be gone?' and you say, 'Well, we hope soon' -- for somebody that's looking to start something, that's not the words they want to hear," he said. "But when they can come and they can look and it's empty and they could start loading tomorrow, that is a lot easier to market."

The city has been advertising the hangar in aviation magazines with the help of the Cape Girardeau Area Magnet. Since the facility is on airport property, Meyer said its use must have "an airport relation or function."

Although there has been some discussion in the past about selling the hangar rather than renting it to avoid experiencing similar problems with a new tenant, he said city officials are keeping an open mind.

"We will be looking at people to come and tell us what they would like to do. We would consider rent or sale," Meyer said. "We had kind of taken the position that we didn't want to rent to that exact same operation again because that had proved to be problematic, but we want to listen to whatever developers would say that they would want to do with the space."

Ideally, he said, the city hopes to see a business make use of the space and bring some jobs to Cape Girardeau.

srinehart@semissourian.com

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