CHICKASHA – The Municipal Airport Authority’s choice of whether to sell the undeveloped half-section of land “next door to” Chickasha’s airport to Chet Hitt, a California businessman and Chickasha developer, was really quite simple in the view of Jim Cowan, president of the town’s Economic Development Council.
“Do you want to grow grass or do you want to grow jobs?”
The City Council acting as the Chickasha Municipal Airport Authority (CMAA) chose the latter, voting 8-1 to sell the property to “OH HITT Corp.” for $1,578,000 – the appraised market value of the property. For several years that acreage has been leased for $400 per year for agriculture. It would take 3,945 years for rentals at that rate to equal the purchase price.
The sale involved surface rights only, not mineral rights.
“All proceeds from this sale will go into the CMAA for future airport investment and development,” said Darren Martin, the city’s chief building official.
Those could include projects such as constructing a new terminal to replace the one that was erected approximately 20 years ago, and demolishing a hangar erected eight decades ago when Chickasha was training pilots for military duty in World War II.
Chickasha officials have been eyeing a $1 million matching grant from the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics (ODAA) to pay for a new airport terminal. The Federal Aviation Administration wants that terminal to be built where the WW II-era hangar is located, Martin said.
A new terminal “is on the five-year plan that was presented to the ODAA, along with a hangar project,” Martin said. The Airport Board and the CMAA “agreed to both of those projects.”
Hitt said he wants to subdivide the airport industrial park – which according to an appraisal contains a little more than 14 million square feet of space – into 120 to 128 lots for manufacturing, commercial and/or industrial development “in order to create jobs.” That land “was developed for this purpose 25 years ago,” city officials said.
“My goal is to build a few spec buildings over the next year and a half to two years while selling the lots and getting them ready for tenants,” Hitt said.
Businesses tell economic development directors that primarily “they want utilities and they want a building that’s ready to occupy,” Cowan said.
Hitt said he’d make adjustments in the lot sizes “when necessary.” For example, he said he already has “talked to a guy who wants 20,000 to 23,000 square feet of land to establish a Christian school.”
Tinker Air Force Base in the Oklahoma City metroplex north of Chickasha “can’t keep up with manufacturing jobs there,” he said. “They have supply chain issues” in maintaining “their 50- to 70-year-old planes.”
“Perhaps some machine shops” could be lured to the airport industrial park land for training sponsored by the local Canadian Valley Technology Center campus, Mayor Zach Grayson said.
City officials “would need to start working on a master plan” to entice people to live in Chickasha rather than in Tuttle, Blanchard, Norman or Oklahoma City, Hitt said. “This town needs some upscale housing.”
CMAA rejected decision delay Councilman Kelly Boyd asked whether sale of the airport property required advertising for competitive bids.
“No,” said outgoing City Manager Keith Johnson, and City Attorney Amanda Mullins confirmed that answer.
Councilman Charlie Burruss made a motion to “postpone this indefinitely” because of “the gravity of this decision,” and Councilman John Smith seconded. Since “indefinitely” is a vague term, Burruss agreed to change his motion to “table” the vote. Even so, the council defeated the motion on a 7-2 vote.
Councilwoman Georgianne Hebblethwaite countered with a motion to approve the sale, and Councilwoman Kea Ginn provided the second. “For decades this land has sat vacant,” Hebblethwaite said. “I think we would be making a mistake to not go forward.”
Several years ago “a strong effort was made to bring a developer in here, but nothing happened,” Ginn recalled.
A story published in the Oklahoma City Journal Record in December 2016 reported that Chickasha spent more than $1 million in upgrades to its airport industrial park and $400,000 on a road to the site, Ginn said. “Eight years later we have nothing to show for that. I look at this as an opportunity.”
After the city spent money to build that road and install the water line to the airport industrial park, “It’s been sitting vacant for about 20 years. You ate that money,” Hitt told the council.
“I’m here to do a deal for 120 to 128 lots for distribution or manufacturing. I’m talking about maybe 3,000 jobs.”
“People in this town constantly tell me that what they want are water, streets and jobs,” Councilwoman Erica Alexander said. “We have a plan in front of us that has backing and connections, and it’s an actual plan versus ‘someone else might want to do this someday, too.’” Hebblethwaite’s motion authorizing the CMAA to sell the land to Hitt passed on an 8-1 vote.
Appraiser evaluated the 322-acre site The municipal airport is four miles northwest of town. The 322 acres of “vacant land being used for agricultural purposes” are located approximately half a mile west of US-81 highway and 1,321 linear feet north of Airport Road.
When the airport industrial park was established, Martin said, a mile-long two-lane asphalt road with curb and gutter was built; a water line was installed in the easement of that road, along with two fire hydrants; and an abbreviated sewer line was constructed.
Certified appraiser Shaun M. Hogan performed an evaluation of the airport property at the request of Smith Roberts Land Services in Oklahoma City.
The property has a public water supply, and electricity, natural-gas and other utilities are available from public and private service providers. Sewer services “require a private septic system,” the appraiser related.
Hitt put down $100,000 in earnest money and has 120 days to conduct his “due diligence” before a final decision is reached. For example, he pointed out, “The city can’t even sell that land to me before July 1st because it’s leased” through June 30.
Closing on the deal “shall be completed on or before
Turn to LAND, p5 May 15, 2025,” the contract provides. Should the deal fall through, “Cancellation of the contract and refund of earnest money” will be Hitt’s “sole remedy,” an addendum states.
Hitt told Southwest Ledger that if the purchase is consummated, he will build at least two roads in the property “and I would ask the city to provide water meters, since the city makes money from its water sales.”
The acreage is zoned industrial, and since it’s located next to an airport, any developer of the property must “comply with all FAA requirements” such as limitations on the height of structures built on the land.
Airport land has sat idle for 20-30 years Critics pointed out that the appraisal report was dated July 13, two months before city officials amended the Airport Authority’s trust indenture on Sept. 16.
Supporters of the sale countered by noting that despite its zoning classification as “I-2, Heavy Industrial District,” the acreage sat idle for 20 to 30 years.
“We have tried many times to generate interest in that land,” but to no avail until now, said Community Development Director Rachel Bernish, who has been employed with the City of Chickasha for the last five years.
“Efforts to market that property have occurred over several years, in a variety of forms, but really haven’t gone anywhere,” outgoing City Manager Keith Johnson said.
Even Homer Hulme, a member of the Airport Advisory Board for 61 years and an opponent of the sale, confirmed for the Ledger that with the exception of Chet Hitt, no individual or company has approached airport officials about buying or leasing property in the industrial park for any type of development in the last 20 to 30 years. “I’ve never known of any attempts to solicit bids on it,” added Hulme, a retired Air Force pilot and former Chickasha mayor.
Nevertheless, Hulme objects to the sale of the airport industrial park. He told the Ledger he contacted Glenn Boles, manager of the FAA’s Southwest Region office in Fort Worth, Texas; the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office; and the State Auditor and Inspector’s Office, to register his complaints about the transaction.
Indenture change cleared the way A little over three months ago, on Sept. 16, the Chickasha City Council split 5-4 on a proposal to alter the Airport Authority’s trust indenture dated Aug. 16, 1993.
A resolution amended the legal “purposes” of the trust to include, “To promote economic development, the development of the aeronautical industry within and without the territorial limits of the … municipality, and to provide additional employment which will benefit and strengthen the economy of the Beneficiary [the City of Chickasha] and the State of Oklahoma.”
Burruss argued against “making a big decision about something that’s been in place, that has not needed any change for 30plus years.”
The City of Chickasha has made “a lot of changes at the airport,” which is four miles northwest of town, City Manager Keith Johnson said.
“We now have a permanent airport manager, which we haven’t had for some time. We’re building new T-hangars and box hangars, which should produce more revenue. We’re looking at plans for a new terminal building, to make it more attractive.
“We need to come up with long-term plans for the facilities, such as the hangars,” Johnson continued. “They’ve been there sinceWorld War II. They’re no longer functional and are an increasing liability to the city. They’re beyond their useful life.”
Those are the reasons for the amendment, he said. “No development has occurred in that industrial park. The intent is to help us with economic develop-ment opportunities, make the industrial park a more attractive location for potential light industrial.” The trust document adopted 31 years ago “limits our ability to transact economic development business,” Johnson said.
“If a developer comes to us” about setting up shop in the industrial park, “we cannot do business with them,” Bernish said at the time. Under the terms of the trust indenture, “We would not be allowed to move forward unless we’re doing business with a government entity.”
The amendment affords the CMAA “more options in the future, makes it more flexible,” she said.
“We’re trying to create tools for our economic development toolbox,” Mayor Grayson said. “That property has sat out there for 20 years and hasn’t done anything.”
After the CMAA approved the contract, some citizens argued that the entire acquisition process should have been conducted “transparently” and without use of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
“Of course I asked the people I was negotiating with to sign an NDA,” Hitt acknowledged. “I didn’t want the whole world to know what I was doing.” At the outset of the process “the city didn’t know who owned the land,” Hitt said. That alone “took several months” to get straightened out.
Hitt has invested $3.5M in Chickasha Hitt – a resident of Apple Valley, California, who graduated from high school at Anadarko in 1982 – stood before the Chickasha City Council in December 2022 and announced he was willing to invest as much as $5 million in development of several businesses in Chickasha.
In the last two years he has spent at least $3.5 million in acquisition and renovation of several downtown buildings, particularly the Savoy 1902 hotel, the Mill Building and El Cheto, “and I used local contractors for every job,” he said. “I have fulfilled my obligation to leave this town in better shape than I found it.”