Ahoy! New biz in the air - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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But a new door of opportunithyfor Cunningham’s opened when the city of Tavares voteed to designate a virtuak runway for seaplanes in the middle of Lake Dora in July 2007. That led to a cost-savinbg deal with Orlando-based aircraft maker , which wantsa to be near what’ s turning into one of the largesy seaplane bases in Florida with its specialtyproducf — the SeaRey — an assembly kit Aerodyne, a small, family-owned firm, wants to expand to Tavares and could find no better place than Trident’s 23,000-square-foot boat production facility on Lake Idamerd near State Road 19. Aerodyns now is negotiating to lease halfthe facility.
The procesws of building boats and seaplanes is simila when it comes to weldingv and fiberglass andaluminum production. “The idea is to reducwe the costof production,” Cunningham said. “Evejn though the products are different, they’re similar enough and there can be a lot of Despite theeconomic recession, both firmsw will add a handful of new employees to thei businesses when they settle in together on Lake With business waning in the U.S., both firms have begun using new businesws models to expand their customer base.
Darrell general manager for Aerodyne, said his company is eyeing Chinsa to meetthe pent-upl demand for civilian aircraft as the country begines opening airspace to the Trident has a simila idea in mind when it comes to sellingb pontoon boats. Until 70 percent of Trident’s products were exported bringingin $2.4 million Since then, the companyh has focused on domestic but in 2008, they only brought in $1.3 million.
This causecd the company to focus on exporting overseas Seaplanes have been landing on Lake Dora for but when the Tavares City Councip voted to create a designatedf landing zone on the lake that will be operationaolnext year, seaplane enthusiasts and local businesses alike got excited. Since then, 14 new businesses have opened in thedowntown area, many of them catering to the seaplane community, said Tavares city administrator John , on the edge of Lake Dora, has seen its fair share of seaplane pilots in its 25 years of But owner Andrew O’Keefe doesn’t expecft business to pick up until the seabase is completed in Februar 2010. Still, he’s happy to see the changes.
“The city is workiny on bringing a lot of attractions to the The planned seaplane base is economic development in itspurest form, Drury said. “Bg proposing a seaplane base ayear ago, the resultg is an attraction that will create high-wage The city is working with the and the to lay out the virtuall runway and its holding patterns over the Although the lake won’t have any physical pilots will have aeronauticall charts to tell them where they should land or hold. “Thw way they are marketing this, they’re going to make it one of the largestg seaplane bases on theeast coast,” said Progressives Aerodyne owner Kerry Richter.
“It’ll be an attraction for seaplanre pilots in the area and it will have uniquenessfor