You can already buy charts, fuel strainers, and other supplies for your airplane from him. Soon, you may be able to buy a homesite on which to park it from Hal Shevers, too. Shevers, founder of Sporty’s Pilot Shop, is negotiating to buy 100 acres adjacent to Claremont County Airport, where the Sporty’s empire is based, to create a residential fly-in community.
“It’s been taking shape for years. We’ve got plans for splitting it into 34 lots,” Shevers said. “It’s really very nice, it’s all wooded, it would be just spectacular. The zoning people are for it, everybody’s for it. With three acre lots, wooded, nobody has to see their neighbor.”
The major stumbling block at this point, Shevers said, is that the property has five separate owners, two of which are banks, which is complicating the negotiations.
Three acre lots will sell for about $150,000, he said. A taxiway wide enough to accommodate King Airs and Citations will wend through the property. Access to the runway will be provided through land owned by Sporty’s on the airport. The airport offers a full range of aviation services: An interior modification shop, avionics and maintenance facilities, FBO, and walk-in Sporty’s Pilot Shop are on the field..
Would Shevers consider becoming a resident?
“Me? Yes,” Shevers said. “Hell, I’m here at Sporty’s 100 hours a week anyway, so why not spend the other 69 hours?”
As for the timetable for completing negotiations on the property sale, Shevers said the tangle of ownership made an estimate impossible. “We’re dealing with two banks,” Shevers laughed.
“This is a unique situation,” he said of the residential community’s possibilities. “It’s so close to Cincinnati, 25 minutes and you can go down and see the Bengals lose.”