Can Miami Executive Airport become spaceport?

Florida legislators will be asked to designate land at and near Miami Executive Airport in West Kendall as a spaceport territory, which could create economic benefits including tax incentives for aerospace-related businesses in the area.

County commissioners voted 10-2 to seek the designation two days after President Donald Trump promised to send spacecraft and astronauts to Mars. The commission was assured that no space launches were contemplated in or near the airport.

If the legislature were to approve a spaceport designation in West Kendall, it would become the eighth in the state and second in the county.

Homestead Air Force Base was designated a state spaceport last March.

Resolution sponsor Roberto Gonzalez prefaced his presentation by saying that President Trump “just announced in his inaugural speech the golden age of American innovation and in that he expressly stated how America will lead the way in space technology.”

“There are certain monetary incentives, many times 50% of a company investment into anything that has to do with space technology, including AI, is reimbursed by the state and the federal government,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “The reason for designating a spaceport is so that all of the adjacent land that is around Miami Executive Airport, and around any spaceport for that matter, is now going to be able to attract those very incentives.”

Mr. Gonzalez pictured a high-tech future for West Kendall if it gets a spaceport designation.

“Instead of bringing Silicon Valley to Miami,” he said, “let’s create the next initiative in technology, and if the funding is available let’s make sure we bring it right here to Miami-Dade County.”

A downside to a spaceport, said Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III, is that Space Florida would inherit many land controls that county government now holds, including the power to designate lands as conservation areas.

In addition, the space agency could “acquire, build and maintain roads within the territory, prohibit construction or repair of any building in the area,” and could expand or shrink the area included in the spaceport without any county say.

That control, said Mr. Gilbert, would also affect the future use of Miami Executive Airport, which has been a topic of county concern.

“This will substantially handcuff our ability to design what happens in the area,” Mr. Gilbert said. “We would be saying that ‘we are going to trust you to make this decision,’ and the challenge that I have with that is there are things that we may want to do down there, especially in regard to the airport…. This particular designation gives the State of Florida a lot of power in a very important part of Miami-Dade County.”

“I too am very excited and proud for the opportunity to expand our aerospace industry,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava noted. But a spaceport designation, she explained, would trigger a Community Development Master Plan application because the site is beyond the urban development boundary, the line that bars development near the Everglades.

“W are also exploring property near the Homestead Air Reserve Base to be part of the space program,” the mayor noted. Designation of the air base as an official spaceport came after the legislature last March unanimously expanded Florida’s spaceport territory to include the base.

Spaceports are under the jurisdiction of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority.