HOUGHTON — The Houghton County Board of Commissioners approved the sale of two lots at the Houghton County Airpark to a proposed charter school at its monthly meeting Tuesday. 

The county sold lots 19 and 20 of the airpark to the Copper Island Academy for $50,000. 

The lots have been up for sale for almost seven years now, said Airport Manager Dennis Hext. 

“So this is a good deal for the county because they don’t have all the utilities that other lots in the industrial park have,” he said. 

Power and water run to the site already, Hext said. The academy would be responsible for lining up sewer, internet and other services.

Wetlands on the property limit the available acreage, making it less feasible for neighboring businesses to expand on the site, Hext said. 

“I’ve talked this over with other realtors,” he said. “It’s a fair offer.”

With only a few unsold lots, Hext said there is no plan for additional property right now. 

“A lot of property on the airport is owned by the feds, actually, so there’s limited space where we could go at this time,” he said. “The other property that we have is leased out to the test course. So it’s all being used, actually. Which is really good.”

The school, which is applying for a charter, plans to adopt parts of the “Finnish model” of education and will “emphasize and embrace our American roots, heritage and values,” according to its website.

Hext also gave a year-end report on the airport. Enplanements for the year were at 12,128, and total boardings were 24,137 — down from 50,294 in 2019. The 50% drop is fairly standard for airports across the country, Hext said. 

“Considering COVID, and the rapid decline and everything, that’s not too bad,” he said. “More importantly, that means we will be eligible for our million-dollar (Airport Improvement Program) grant.”

923,188 pounds of freight passed through the airport in 2020, Hext said.

The trend of halved boardings has carried through to January, which is generally an off month even in a normal year, Hext said. He hopes to see traffic return to normal in the summer as more people get vaccinated.

“If it happens in June, July, August, September, October, those are our strongest months,” he said. “So that would help.”

Fares are also still low, Hext said. Flights to Phoenix were about $300, versus a usual round trip fare of $600 to $700. 

“The airlines right now are just trying to get your business to keep the cash flow going,” he said. 

Despite the snows and low visibility of the past few days, planes have been able to get in, Hext said. 

“We had issues getting them out because of the temperatures, but we just had one leave a little while ago,” he said.