FAA, Senator Bernie Moreno Opposed to Closing Burke Lakefront Airport

Cleveland’s hope of closing Burke Lakefront Airport and transforming hundreds of acres on the shores of Lake Erie into parks and development got dimmer this week.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and Sen. Bernie Moreno told News 5’s Michelle Jarboe that they were opposed to closing the airport despite lobbying by Mayor Justin Bibb and others.

“The FAA is against closing airports across the country,” Bedford told News 5 on Friday. “We need to talk about how do we open new facilities. Not how do we close existing, valuable real estate.”

“So I will tell you, the FAA is not in favor of closing Burke field,” he said.

Senator Bernie Moreno agreed.

“It would be patently absurd for a politician to override the experts at the FAA, to say we know better than you do,” remarked Moreno, who has spent his career in D.C. going after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC and other career medical experts and scientists for policies and recommendations made during the Covid pandemic and, more recently, voiced his support for the Trump administration’s measures against mandatory childhood vaccines.

The North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation earlier this year debuted possible ideas for the 450 acres that Burke currently occupies: a massive conglomerate of soccer fields, a youth sports complex, RV camping, three hotels, a beach-side promenade and 18 holes of lakefront golf were among possibilities proffered.

The nonprofit tasked with guiding the future of the lakefront shared results from a survey of 6,215 Northeast Ohioans earlier this year. Over half of them, almost 3,800, were supportive of “creating a more accessible lakefront,” with most calling for parks, restaurants and multipurpose trails. Seven out of ten Cleveland respondents wanted to see Burke closed for good.

A February report found that Burke loses roughly $1 million per year. (And makes most of its money off parking.)

A full re-development could throw $3.3 million more per year to the city’s tax revenue base, a study in March 2024 found, and increase access to Cleveland’s under-used lakefront.

Tenants and businesses at Burke have pushed to keep the airport operating, arguing that further investment could grow operations.

City Hall, in a statement to Scene, disagreed with the assessment of the FAA and Moreno.

“The 450 acres of lakefront property occupied by Burke Lakefront Airport belong to the people of Cleveland and should benefit the people of Cleveland,” city spokesperson Jorge Ramos Pantoja said. “Burke is an underutilized public asset that has been operating at a multi-million-dollar deficit over the past two decades.”

He pointed to Cleveland Hopkins International, in midst of a $2 billion makeover of its parking garages and terminals. “Our responsibility is to improve the overall quality of life and economic well-being of Clevelanders,” Ramos Pantoja said.

A near change in the federal administration, in Congress and the FAA, could renew some optimism for what would be the quickest path to shutting down Burke.

Without congressional approval, the city would either bank on a new FAA chief, or wait until 2039, the year it fulfills their end of the deal on a combined $7 million in grants.