The National Cherry Festival air show is a go for this summer – as well as 2025 and 2026 – after the Northwest Regional Airport Authority board approved an agreement with the festival Monday following weeks of intense negotiations. In other airport news, a technology park proposed to be built on TVC property will have a public hearing Thursday.

Air Show
National Cherry Festival and Northwest Regional Airport Authority (NRAA) officials reached an agreement that will allow the festival’s air show to take place for the next three years. NRAA board members voted 7-1 Monday to approve the new agreement, with Paul Beachnau (who represents Otsego County on the board) opposed. Festival officials had already approved the agreement heading into Monday’s NRAA special meeting.

Festival and airport officials have been in a high-profile conflict for weeks over the fate of the air show, a beloved community event but one that has posed increasing disruptions to Cherry Capital Airport’s commercial traffic as the airport continues to grow. The two-day air show and associated practices restrict the normal flow of traffic at an airport that now has a dozen or more flights an hour in the busy summer months, up substantially from a decade ago. TVC sought to limit the duration of the air show and practices to reduce disruption of commercial flights, but festival officials said conditions requested by the airport could harm or even kill the show.

Following intense negotiations – including a day-long summit with airport and festival representatives on March 25 – the two parties reached terms for the new three-year agreement. The agreement allows the Blue Angels – who are performing this year – to be in the air between 3pm and 4pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (June 28-30), plus a practice on Thursday. Slower aircraft in the show, which do not interrupt commercial traffic, can be in the air between 1pm and 4pm all three days.

Similar terms are outlined for the 2025 and 2026 shows, though the Cherry Festival does not yet have high-performance aircraft scheduled for 2025. If the Blue Angels or other high-performance aircraft need to be in the air outside of the outlined times, festival and airport officials agreed to “mutually cooperate” on a schedule to minimize commercial interruptions, if one is possible. The agreement also requires post-show annual debriefs between airport and festival officials to discuss any needed improvements for future events.

In addition, the NRAA and Cherry Festival have agreed to conduct a joint logistics study on the future of the air show after 2026. The parties will equally split the cost of the study, with no party obligated to pay more than $25,000. The study will address how the NRAA will make the airport available “for public use on reasonable terms, and without unjust discrimination, to all types, kinds, and classes of aeronautical activities,” according to the agreement. It will also detail the number of people benefiting from the air show (including spectators, businesses, and more), the number of flights and passengers affected by the air show, the tourism benefit to Grand Traverse County, the benefit to the U.S. military for “recruiting and public affairs activities,” and the ways in which the Cherry Festival can reduce airport impacts and both parties can coordinate future air shows to keep airport operations running smoothly.

Beachnau said he couldn’t support the agreement because he believed the Cherry Festival hadn’t negotiated in “good faith” and that the airport was being “bullied” into a contract. However, most NRAA and Cherry Festival officials were pleased with the outcome, saying the agreement wasn’t perfect but that both sides had compromised to preserve an important community event. “There’s been a lot of give and take,” said Grand Traverse County Commission Chair Rob Hentschel, who sits on the NRAA board. “We have two different points of view, and we need to bring them together for the good of the community.”

Cherry Festival Executive Director Kat Paye notes that a written agreement hasn’t been in place for the air show for several years. While approving one now helps formalize many of the conditions under which the air show operates, Paye and other officials said that shouldn’t change the public experience of the event. “For the kid sitting on the beach staring up at the planes dreaming about flying one one day, he’s not going to know the difference,” said National Cherry Festival Foundation Board Chair Mike Meindertsma. “And that’s what’s important.”

Versa Technology Park
A new technology and logistics park – which could bring tens of millions of dollars of investment into vacant Cherry Capital Airport land east of Judson Street off South Airport Road by Costco – will go to a public hearing Thursday at 6pm in the airport’s second-floor conference room.

The NRAA zoning board will consider a special use permit (SUP) from Versa LLC for the development. The zoning board could vote to recommend the application to the general NRAA board. The NRAA board could then hold its own public hearing or simply vote to approve the SUP, potentially putting the project on track for a May or June approval. Versa will also have to get state and federal approval on several aspects of the project, including Federal Aviation Administration sign-off on the proposed 90-year lease term.

Versa’s proposed park could eventually feature over 200,000 square feet of distribution facilities, warehousing, light industrial, office, data processing, laboratories, and research-and-development tenants. Vera’s Todd Wyett previously told The Ticker the firm could break ground on the first of multiple planned buildings in 2025, with the goal of building out the park over the next five years. The plan is not to focus on public-facing or tourism businesses – Wyett ruled out hotels, restaurants, and retail stores – but rather technology and logistics companies he said are lacking adequate space in Traverse City.

Cherry Capital Airport CEO Kevin Klein says the park’s ability to be “multimodal” – servicing both air and truck freight – and offering building sizes missing in the market for that kind of commercial use is an “exciting” aspect of the project. “I think it’s going to fill a need,” he says. Based on the total square footage of the parcel, Versa could likely end up paying between $200,000 and $250,000 annually to the airport, Klein estimates, though lease terms have not yet been finalized. That would represent an estimated cost of 30 cents per square foot, compared to Costco’s 21 cents. However, Klein notes Costco had to put in utilities and other infrastructure, which led to a lower lease rate.

Infrastructure and traffic will also be discussion points. At a recent meeting, Grand Traverse County road commissioners expressed concerns about how airport growth will impact surrounding corridors like South Airport, Three Mile, and Townline roads in the coming years. Versa will likely need to pay for a traffic study, Klein says, which would evaluate some of those issues and if a signal is needed at the South Airport/Judson intersection. Klein also says TVC is open to collaborating on and helping fund road improvements surrounding the airport. “Those are all things that have to be addressed and participated in in some form or another,” he says.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy/Jasmine Suarez