Venice airport ‘tower’coming in 4-5 years

The city has been mandated to get a remote-control tower

BOB MUDGE

Senior Writer

VENICE — Venice Municipal Airport will have a control “tower” in the next four to five years.

More accurately, it will have a control pole.

Airport Director Nick Dumas told the City Council at Wednesday’s Capital Improvement Program workshop that the Florida Department of Transportation, which is now managing the Federal Aviation Administration’s contract tower program, has identified the airport as one of the top five in the state to get a tower.

“Tower is 100% mandated, 100% funded through that program,” he said. “It won’t come out of the city’s budget.”

The CIP has $7 million allocated for the tower in Fiscal Year 2031, all in the form of a federal grant.

But it’s not for a typical brickand- mortar tower, like the ones at larger airports. Instead, Dumas said, a pole probably no more than 20 feet tall will be equipped with 28 ultra-high definition infrared cameras covering all movement areas.

A remote air traffic control specialist will monitor traffic remotely.

That was a relief to Council Member Rick Howard, who’s a pilot.

“None of us wants to see a 75-80-foot round tune sticking up out on the airport property,” he said.

The city’s airport master plan consultant, chosen in part because of its expertise in getting tower approvals, said the city’s tower will be up and running in four to five years, Dumas said.

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Venice is its No. 1 priority, he said.

A remote tower was one of the options Venice Aviation Society Inc. presented to the city for consideration in 2022, to deal with increased traffic, safety concerns and a lack of compliance with airport guidelines and procedures, especially those related to noise reduction.

At the time, VNC — the code for the airport — was one of only three coastal airports between Brooksville, north of Venice, and Everglades City, to the south, that didn’t have a tower, according to VASI.

There were only two remote-control towers in the country then, though there were more in Europe.

Then-Airport Director Mark Cervasio said the airport likely didn’t have the volume to justify a tower.

But it has experienced “explosive growth,” Dumas told the Council at its strategic planning session in February, seeing the number of takeoffs and landings increase from about 80,000 in 2022, when technology that could accurately record the number of operations was installed, to 116,638 last year.

There were about 9,300 operations in January, he said, compared to 8,400 a year earlier — more than a 10% increase.

Dumas said he expects that trend to hold for the entire year.

The airport’s volume has it on a path that will trigger enhanced safety standards, including establishing and staffing an aircraft rescue and fire fighting facility at the airport, he said. He put $3.5 million into the FY 2031 CIP for one, to be proactive to show the FAA “safety is No. 1 for us.”

Mayor Nick Pachota, who’s been in public safety for more than 25 years, said the cost seemed low.

Dumas said the plan is for an ARFF vehicle in a single-bay building with storage space for equipment and a rest area for the Venice Fire Rescue person who would staff it 12 hours a day. It would be a part-time facility because 99% of airport operations occur between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., he said.

Pachota said that having one person responding to calls isn’t optimal. His preference, he said, would be for a hardened two-bay facility, with a firefighting unit and a life-support unit, staffed 24/7 by four people.

Council Member Lloyd Weed agreed that 24/7 coverage is needed “unless we’re looking to plan our emergencies.”

Airport-based apparatus could supplement a response from Fire Station 51.

Council Member Ron Smith asked whether access to Caspersen Beach should be in the CIP. The 2024 hurricanes destroyed South Harbor Drive, leaving the beach inaccessible by vehicles that way.

An option to restore vehicular access would be to construct a new road to the east, on land leased to Venice Golf Association for the Lake Venice Golf Club, whose lease expires in 2028 and can’t be renewed.

City Manager James Clinch said city officials will be meeting with FAA representatives later this month to discuss what the agency might allow the city to do with the land.