Neighbors, executive airport leaders spar over study

Almost 30 years since his family sold one of the busiest airports in Illinois to Wheeling and Prospect Heights, Charlie Priester has returned to Chicago Executive Airport's front offices.

As the airport's CEO, a $6,000-a-month position created last summer, Priester said his job is "to plan for the future."

For now, that means managing a controversial, long-term study that has many of the airport's neighbors concerned about a runway expansion they fear will level homes in its path and bring more noise to the skies overhead.

The study's first phase, which focuses on changes in the aviation industry and development around the airport, could be complete by late spring.

The next phase will explore several possible enhancements at the airport, including whether to extend the main runway to 7,000 feet, allowing larger corporate jets to use the facility. Priester previously said those types of jets are the future for airports like Chicago Executive.

But before any movement in that direction occurs, airport officials will host a pair of open houses next week to update the study's progress and, almost certainly, hear from neighbors opposed to any expansion.

Planning for the long term

Priester, whose father oversaw the growth of the then-Palwaukee airport into the 1980s, argues that keeping the airport viable in the years ahead requires more runway for in-demand, heavier planes that let executives fly to Asia without having to stop for fuel.

"And that makes sense when you realize that we're now in a world economy," said Priester, who's working with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc., a Springfield-based engineering firm, on the study.

Priester won't say how much that would cost or where a longer runway would go. Those details are expected in phase two, which could last three more years, officials said. ​

Priester says he welcomes concerns at an "informal" discussion during the open houses, where pilots and airport staff will address noise and what the study says about economic development. The latter is of particular interest to Wheeling officials who last year set up a tax increment financing district near the airport with similar boundaries to one the village prematurely expired.

"It's just in shambles, and it's such a valuable piece of property," Wheeling Village Trustee Ray Lang said of the Industrial Lane commercial area included in the TIF district.

Priester sees the airport as an economic engine. If it better caters to corporate clients, more businesses could relocate to the Northwest suburbs. There are 35 Fortune 500 companies in the airport's service area, he said.

That's one of the findings Priester hopes will persuade the airport board of directors - appointed by the facility's municipal owners - to sign off on more study.

"There are many, many changes that have happened in 30 years which really demand that we go into phase two and look at what could be done, what should be done to keep up with these changes," he said.

'How's it going to happen?'

Lang and Prospect Heights Mayor Nick Helmer say no one knows the airport better than Priester.

"He's so knowledgeable of that place," said Lang, who sits on the airport board. "He grew up there."

But neighbors - and members of the airport's pilots association - claim his hiring poses a conflict of interest. The family business, Priester Aviation, runs charter flights out of a Chicago Executive hangar. Priester is chairman of the company, and his son is its CEO.

"It smells. Technically, legally it may be OK," says Christine Dolgopol, a former Wheeling plan commissioner. "But there's a taint to it to me."

Residents in a group called Citizens Against Runway Expansion believe a longer runway would pave the way for louder cargo planes more than private jet traffic, a claim the airport denies. About 20 members are actively involved in CARE, and more than 400 have signed an online petition.

Helmer vowed no freight haulers would be taking off from Chicago Executive.

"There's no clandestine effort here to make it something that it's not," he said.

No matter the clientele, a longer runway would serve fliers at the expense of noise-weary residents whose homes could face the wrecking ball, says Laurel Didier, a CARE member who works in publishing.

"It's not just a 7,000-foot runway," she said. "You've got to have a lot of property around it as a buffer."

The runway's route, residents say, is limited by forest preserve land to the east. Wheeling officials are clear they would never support expanding runway No. 16/34, now 5,000 feet, north.

"That would displace so many residents," said Lang, who introduced a successful village resolution asking planners to consider their concerns.

Allan Englehardt, the airport's former chairman and a retired airline pilot, cautions that adding on to the south would be "prohibitively expensive."

In 2013, when the airport looked into extending the main runway up to 2,000 feet across Palatine Road, O'Hare International Airport's air traffic control tower objected, Englehardt said. O'Hare officials said it would disrupt their operations because Chicago Executive planes could encroach into their airspace.

"How's it going to happen?" Englehardt said. "Every objection makes sense."

Airport master plan open houses

When: 5-9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, and 2-6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19

Where: Priester Aviation, Hangar 9, 1061 S. Wolf Road, Wheeling

Parking: In front of Priester Aviation and just northwest of the lot at Atlantic Aviation

Details: Informational stations will address the plan's first phase, economic development, aviation trends and "development considerations" like noise and stormwater

Contact: (847) 537-2580