Jay,

Come to Oregon (or-a-gun...not GONE! I'd love it! grin

Seriously though, if Oregon is not too far out, you might want to
consider this area. Salem (KSLE) has a nice towered field that has 2
runways and the city is trying very hard to get commercial service in
here. There is nothing on field for lodging, but there is some nearby,
but our republican, business-friendly mayor and city council would be
happy to help, I am sure. Nearby businesses (within walking distance,
or on field):

Hertz Car Sales,
Budget rent-a-van
PDX-SLE Shuttle bus,
The Flight Deck restaurant

Within 1 mile of the airport, you have a Costco, Lowe's Home Depot,
Wal-Mart, K-Mart, US Post Office, Several new car dealerships, Freeway
access, Dairy Queen, Jack in the Box, several gas stations, and a local,
hole in the wall type of burger joint.

SLE is about 2 miles from the State Capitol Bldg, Willamette University
(prestigioussp? law school), Corban University (Christian college),
Brand-new Salem Convention Center (opened March 2005), Downtown shopping
area, Historic Mission Mill, & more.

By air, SLE is about 30-45 mins from most locations on the Oregon Coast
and only about 2-3 hours from the farthest point in the state (by air)
in SE Oregon. Decent skiing in the mountains about 2 hrs by car, 1 hr
south (by car) from Portland, Oregon. Lots of historical stuff in the
area. Local theater company that does pretty good. Univ of Oregon and
Oregon State Univ both within about 1-1/5 hrs by car and under an hour
by plane.

Want more info? Email me! Put chris@ in front of my domain name
(listed in the closing)

Chris G.
http://www.k7sle.com


Jay Honeck wrote:
So we've got three years of creating/running an aviation-theme-suite hotel
under our belt now, things are going well, and it's time to start thinking
about adding another location.

Trouble is, I'm afraid that our current location may be almost unique.
Here's what we need in order to duplicate our success:

1. A small-to-medium hotel on, or adjacent to, an airport.
2. The airport must be very close to the city that it serves. No
"out-in-the-boonies" airports, please.
3. The city must have another attraction that creates hotel business.

In our case, it's the University of Iowa that creates the alternative
business. (There simply aren't enough of us pilots to solely support a
hotel, sad to say.) In other locales, it might be a tourist attraction.

Any suggestions? We would prefer a warm-weather climate, to off-set our
Midwest location, and to prolong the flying season -- but we're open to
suggestions. (Ideally, it would be fun to have a southern hotel to run in
winter, and the Iowa location to run in summer! :-)

(Better yet, an Australian location to run from November - April, and our
Iowa location to run form May - October!)