One of Mayor Justin Bibb’s signature big ideas — closing and redeveloping Burke Lakefront Airport — appears to be stuck on the ground after key decision makers recently signaled the idea won’t fly. Cleveland’s next move is unclear.
City Hall isn’t admitting defeat. Nor has it yet said publicly whether it will continue its push to replace Burke with new development, or what form that effort may take. The airport sits on 450 acres of Lake Erie landfill that the Bibb administration argues could be put to better use.
On Friday, Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno and the head of the Federal Aviation Administration told News 5 Cleveland and Fox 8 that they didn’t support shuttering the airport.
Those comments signaled that Cleveland’s lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., was coming up short. Bibb met in June with a U.S. Department of Transportation official and Northeast Ohio’s congressional delegation to talk about Burke and other issues.
Burke boosters were lobbying, too. Kyle Lewis, the Great Lakes regional manager for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, saw Friday’s news as a win — or at least a portion of one.
“It’s partially victory,” Lewis told Signal Cleveland. “Now it’s a conversation-starter for what the city should do, which is invest in the airport.”
The city and FAA should draw up a master plan for Burke, Lewis said. Such a plan could identify areas of the Burke sit that the city can redevelop while allowing the airport to live on, he said.
“There’s still room for the city to kind of get what they want,” he said.
FAA: Our policy is to strengthen airports, not close them
Cleveland was always going to run into turbulence trying to win FAA approval for closing Burke. In a council hearing this year, city officials pointed out that agency guidelines require the FAA to consider whether closing an airport would yield a “net benefit to civil aviation.”
Officially speaking, the city has not formally asked the FAA for permission to shut down Burke, an agency spokesperson told Signal Cleveland in an email Monday. But the writing is on the wall of the airport terminal.
“The FAA’s policy is to strengthen the national airports system not to close airports,” the agency’s email read.
Moreno’s opposition is more significant. It throws a roadblock across another avenue for decommissioning Burke: an act of Congress.
On Friday, the senator said it would be “patently absurd” to overrule the FAA’s position against closing airports. Asked on Monday about the senator’s position, a Moreno spokesperson told Signal Cleveland that his comment spoke for itself.
Where does the Bibb administration go from here? In a statement issued Friday, city spokesperson Jorge Ramos Pantoja reiterated the administration’s stance that Burke’s land was an “underutilized” asset.
“The 450 acres of lakefront property occupied by Burke Lakefront Airport belong to the people of Cleveland and should benefit the people of Cleveland,” he wrote. “We are disheartened that the federal administration’s position appears to bypass the best interests of Clevelanders and Ohioans, who actually have to live with the consequences.”
The statement didn’t reveal Cleveland’s next move.
The voice of Cleveland’s major businesses, which supports closing Burke, similarly left ambiguous whether the effort to shut down the airport would go on. In an emailed statement, Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO Baiju Shah said he was “disappointed” by the FAA administrator’s position.
Shah also gave Bibb credit for his work to develop the Lake Erie shore and Cuyahoga riverfront.
“We are eager to explore opportunities to make Burke a productive city asset, and to identify opportunities for new air technologies in the region,” the statement read. “We will continue to work with the Mayor and all partners on improving both our lakefront and riverfronts.”
Mayor meets resistance for now
Perhaps Bibb’s next option is to wait to see who controls Congress after the November elections. A frequent visitor to the nation’s capital, Bibb developed a good relationship with Pete Buttigieg, the Biden-era transportation secretary.
But with Republicans running the White House and Congress for now, Bibb has tried a different tack. The mayor previously said that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam had been helpful in navigating the issue of Burke with the Trump administration and Ohio’s Republican senators.
Moreno offered this advice for City Hall on Friday: Focus your energy on other issues.
“The city’s better served addressing the issues in the neighborhoods,” Moreno told News 5 on Friday. “Addressing public safety. Addressing economic prosperity, which can be driven by Burke Lakefront Airport. In the business world, we have an expression: ‘Don’t talk about things that are never gonna happen.’”
