{"id":52658,"date":"2024-12-17T16:44:18","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T21:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=52658"},"modified":"2024-12-17T16:46:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T21:46:09","slug":"florida-state-guard-will-establish-a-base-at-lakeland-international-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/12\/17\/florida-state-guard-will-establish-a-base-at-lakeland-international-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida State Guard will establish a base at Lakeland International Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Florida State Guard has signed a 30-year agreement to build a new Lakeland International Airport base.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lakeland Commissioners approved a contract Monday morning to lease 8.9 undeveloped acres on the south side of Lakeland International to the Florida State Guard to build a new training and public safety base. The base will be located north of Geico’s office building, west of NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center, and close to an area of the airport grounds known as Paradise City Field.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“This project greatly enhances the agency’s statewide posture and will serve as a critical air base for the state Guard’s rapidly expanding aviation footprint,” said Jay Arnold, the Florida State Guard’s chief of staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the lease deal, the Guard plans to have a hangar, offices, and aircraft apron constructed on the 8.9 acres. Oversight of the project will fall to the Florida Department of Management Services. Arnold would not provide an estimated date for construction to be completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is another exciting opportunity for our community. This will provide jobs, part-time and full-time,” Airport Director Kris Hallstrand said. “How do we keep young people in Lakeland engaged in aviation? We keep them in Lakeland working on fixed-wing or helicopter assets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The offices would bring new employment opportunities to the area, hiring 14 to 16 full-time staff members, Arnold said. The number of personnel on site would exponentially increase during active training, up to about 200 members, more in times of emergency response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As we’ve seen a number of storms hit the coastal regions around Hillsborough County, Pasco County areas, this posture allows us to train down here and respond in a quick pace to some of the emergencies we see in this region,” Arnold said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In exchange for the land, the state guard will pay to begin paying Lakeland rent either one year after the contract was signed, Dec. 16. 2025, or when it receives its certificate of occupancy for the hangar, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city will receive $156,816 per year in rent from the State Guard. This rent does not include the cost of utilities or any applicable taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year, the lease payment due to the city would increase by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, not to exceed 8%. If the CPI is negative in a given year, there will be no change in yearly rent, under the city’s agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 11 years, the base rent paid by the Florida State Guard will be increased by 10% of the appraised value of the unimproved land as estimated by a certified member of the Appraisal Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida State Guard will also have the first right of refusal on four adjacent acres for future expansion and may take ownership of that space with 60 days written notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the city’s deal, the state guard has the option for two 10-year extensions of the lease. This means it could last up to 50 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida State Guard has signed a 30-year agreement to build a new Lakeland International Airport base. Lakeland Commissioners approved a contract Monday morning to lease 8.9 undeveloped acres on the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMTJcLzAwTkFULUZMT1JJREEtR1VBUkQtcHJvbW8tcHR3di1zdXBlckp1bWJvLndlYnA_Zml0PTEwMjQlMkM2ODMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJGbG9yaWRhIFN0YXRlIEd1YXJkIHdpbGwgZXN0YWJsaXNoIGEgYmFzZSBhdCBMYWtlbGFuZCBJbnRlcm5hdGlvbmFsIEFpcnBvcnQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.98lW-3nayueeXepFbE2VAT7gZYuuv0a_BcPnUO4XWt8MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":52660,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/00NAT-FLORIDA-GUARD-promo-ptwv-superJumbo.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[10531],"class_list":["post-52658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-state-guard-will-establish-a-base-at-lakeland-international-airport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52661,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52658\/revisions\/52661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}