How skydivers are blocking millions of dollars in improvements at Lakewood Airport

LAKEWOOD – For years Lakewood Airport officials have been trying to build a two-story terminal, additional office space and a restaurant.

They have also discussed developing an adjacent 50 acres for possible industrial buildings, a warehouse, and a health care facility.

But all of these plans, and any others at the airport, have been put on hold.

Why?

It’s not funding issues, a protest from neighbors or even supply shortages.

It’s skydiving.

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Well, skydiving and the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve any development related to the airport and is demanding that the township allow a skydiving company to use the space for recreational parachuting before it green lights any improvements.

“I don’t understand why tens of millions of dollars in development is on the hook for someone who wants to drop parachutes,” Mayor Ray Coles said about the federal agency. “They had said that until we figure out what to do for this parachute group they will not approve our development plans for the area around the airport.”

FAA Spokesperson Eva Lee Ngai did not offer specifics about why the agency is demanding that a skydiving service be allowed at this time, but said via email, “Lakewood Municipal Airport, a federally obligated airport, is required to allow aeronautical uses such as the proposed skydiving operations.”

Airport officials said they oppose the skydiving service for safety reasons, claiming current traffic is already too tight with private planes, banner company flights and other uses.

“You have 20 planes a day that are making multiple (banner flights),” said Steve Reinman, executive director of the Lakewood Industrial Commission that operates the airport. “And that is a lot of traffic between Memorial Day well into September and sometimes October.”

He also said the airport is used for student pilots, private pilots, and helicopters.

“There is a wide variety of users,” he said. “It means you have to coordinate when you are introducing another kind of user.”

The skydiving service is being proposed by ISkyDive America, based in Michigan, which operates similar services in several cities, including Miami, Dallas, Detroit and New York.

Luther Kurtz, the company’s CEO, said he’s been operating such locations for 25 years with few problems.

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“The FAA has a really good procedure for evaluating airports and they make a determination about how to do it,” he said in an interview. “We know we have some rights and we try to politely go about enforcing those, but as soon as we get access we make sure we are the best users and tenants that we can be.”

He defended the FAA’s efforts to require access at Lakewood for his company.

“According to the FAA, skydiving is an aeronautical activity that should be given airport access the same as airplanes, helicopters and banner towers,” Kurtz said. “My experience working with Lakewood on this is very positive. We want to work out a plan that can work for us and Lakewood Township and the other users of the airport.”

Coles said the airport’s battle is not directly with ISkyDive America, but with the FAA, which has said nothing can be built until a deal is struck.

He contends that such a change is difficult given the safety concerns and logistics.

“We don’t really have the time to have a company do it,” he said. “And it is an extremely hazardous zone to have things drop out of the sky.”

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-Ocean, held several meetings with airport leaders and the FAA in 2023 to help explain the township’s opposition.

“There is potential danger with having these flights,” Smith said. “We want to ensure that safety is the paramount issue here.”

This is not the first FAA dispute the airport has faced, having objected to the increased use of banner flights as far back as 2016, according to past letters between the FAA and Smith’s office.

While that issue was eventually resolved, the FAA has been seeking a skydiving option at the airport since at least 2020, when the federal agency first sought approval for such a service and said that airport development would be blocked until is allowed.

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“We are working with the (airport) regarding an ongoing compliance issue related to a request to conduct skydiving operations at the airport that must be resolved prior to issuance of any additional airport improvement program funds or supplemental grants,” FAA Regional Administrator Jennifer Stance wrote to Smith in a 2020 letter.

Lakewood had been a popular skydiving location for most of the 1960s and 1970s, but it ended in the early 1980s, according to Reinman.

“In the early '80s it stopped,” he said. “I was in Lakewood, there were some stories and some incidents, there may have been one or more accidents, it was privately owned at the time.”

At least three skydiver deaths have occurred at the airport, in 1964, 1965 and 1976, according to news reports. A Plainfield woman whose chute failed to open after a Lakewood jump in 1965 sued a skydiving service after the accident left her disabled.

There has also been at least one skydiver wedding at the airport when Richard Spates and Teresa Thames of New York parachuted over Lakewood along with a minister, 10 guests and two photographers in 1982.

Skydiving deaths have dropped nationwide, according to the United States Parachute Association, which recorded 10 deaths in 2023, compared to 24 in 2013.

Lakewood Township bought the airport in the mid-1990s for about $10 million, most of which came from a federal grant, Reinman said.

Both the township and the FAA say negotiations are ongoing to allow the skydiving service and they have yet to utilize any legal channels.

“We have tried to work out some arrangement to see if we could have a drop zone in Lakewood but not at the airport,” said Steve Secare, Lakewood township attorney. “We are in communication with them but I am not saying we are getting that much progress.”

Secare said one of the sticking points is the proximity of the airport to several busy highways, including NJ Route 70 and the Garden State Parkway.

“It hasn’t been hostile,” he said about the dispute. “We just don’t think it’s safe.”

Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lakewood Airport improvements on hold for an unexpected reason