To second item #1 below..
An insufficiently long enough term lease bit our chapter badly at a city
airport. Even though totally financing/constructing our
shop/hanger/building, after 25 years we "lost" it to the city. Our rent went
from $0 to almost $300/ month. Be aware that city airport commissions can
change easily from GA/experimental friendly to not. We lost every
discussion over the last 4 years and now spend most of our time chasing
revenue to cover our expenses....As I understand, the land was leased for 20
years at no rent and our building became theirs afterwards for us to rent
like other hangers on the field. ie: no "break" to EAA chapter.
wrote in message
ups.com...
KyleOn May 9, 7:14?pm, "Kyle Boatright"
wrote:
Our EAA chapter is perpetually scheming for ways to acquire a hangar for
member aircraft and for chapter activities. Obviously, any reasonably
sized
hangar requires a substantial outlay of funds. The cost issue seems to be
the big hold-up right now.

Anyway, we're looking at a variety of pre-engineered metal building
options
for a 50x60 (approx) hangar, but would consider a "homebuilt" alternative
if
we could come up with a design that would be functional (it would need to
meet code and have decent aesthetics), more affordable than commercially
purchased alternatives, and that could be built by your typical group of
enthusiasts.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

By the way, the hangar would be at a public airport, and we've been
directed
by the airport authority that Quonset hut type shelters or bigger versions
of portable garage type buildings will not get their approval. I suspect
that what they really want us to build is a commercially purchased hangar,
but until they rule out other alternatives, we're gonna pursue all viable
options.

Kyle -

Our chapter (www.eaa32.org) went through the same drama several years
ago. While we were debating the budget vs. construction type issue,
one of our members got a lead on an existing 40' X 100' metal building
that was scheduled to be torn down for new highway construction. In
fact, it had been the State DOT's field office for the project, and
was on land owned by a local hotel chain. Being organized as a 501(c)3
not-for-profit corporation that made it possible for them to donate
the building to us and take a tax right off.

When we got the green light from the hotel firm, we put out the call
for all able bodied members to come out to disassemble the building,
and stuff the salvagable material into some rented trailers, and
hauled them up to our county airport location. One member fortunately
had access to a mobil crane which was needed to disassemble the metal
frame and load onto a flatbed. Incredibly, we accomplished all this in
less than three weeks with a bunch of part-timers. At this point
everyone thought we were almost (in our) home. Reality set in when we
discovered that before ground breaking, we had to:
1. Negotiate a favorable long term lease for the land with the county.
2. Hire a professional engineering firm to design a new foundation.
3. Make new plans for the interior.
4. Buy a fold-up door (included engineering modification to building
frame)
5. Get plans approved by eight agencies, including FEMA because it is
located in a flood plain.

Because we decided to rebuild it ourselves, it took about two years to
go through the above, and then about four years of Saturdays to get to
where we could lock the door (like a homebuilt, we can't say it's
really complete, but it's usable). Most of the building process is
documented on our website under "ARC" which officially stands for
Aviation Resource Center, but some wags opine that being in a flood
plain suggests something else. One important caveat as part of the
negotiation with the airport is that the ARC was not to be used of
long term storage of airplanes. This turned out not to be an issue b/c
we basically need all the available space for meetings and short term
aircraft use at critical completion points.

We learned a lot, many of us had to readjust our saturdays after the
construction was complete, and in spite of the occasional ruffled
feather, I would say that most found it an enjoyable experience. And,
after years of yakking about it, we finally have a home.

If any chapter wants to do anything like what I've described here, I
will be glad to pass on our experience in the form of what to do, or
not do, as the case may be based on our experience. BTW, if you can't
find a friendly building donor, there are some buiding component
companies around I can steer you to to get the lowest starting cost if
you want to do it with "sweat equity" like we did. We ended up going
to them for many components because some stuff just wasn't reusable.

Doug Killebrew
Construction Manager, EAA 32, (Ret)