Note: This picture does not depict the Bob Lee Airport.
Unbeknown to many, an airport north of DeLand has closed and has become a cattle pasture.
The Bob Lee Airport, also known as the Bob Lee Flight Strip, has been sold to a new owner, who has also acquired land adjacent to the now-defunct airport.
A DeLand company, Gold Springs Shores LLC, purchased the 33.2-acre airport last year for $850,000, according to official Volusia County records.
“The land use has turned toward agriculture, with cattle grazing,” said Deputy County Appraiser Mark Wright, director of real estate in the Volusia County Property Appraiser’s Office, told The Beacon.
Wright added the buildings formerly on the acreage have been demolished and fences now enclose the grazing area.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Florida Department of Transportation have approved the decommissioning of the airport, located west of State Road 11. whose operations ceased last year.
The Bob Lee Airport was a place for owners of small general-aviation aircraft to store and maintain their planes, including some vintage aircraft. In recent years, the airport was a place where a local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association met. The airport also offered glider flights to the public.
An ordinance acknowledging the closing of the Bob Lee Airport and the removal of the airport-protection overlay zone is pending before the county’s Planning and Land Development Regulation Commission June 15.
The aircraft-overlay protection zone denotes an area around an airport where land uses and activities should be compatible with flight activities. That would include forbidding or minimizing aerial hazards or obstructions, such as tall structures within the zone.
The County Council will take up the ordinance at a later date.
As for the future of the property, County Planning Manager Patricia Smith confirmed the new owner, James B. Skinner of Gold Springs Shores LLC, has said he wants to keep the land as is.
“What we’ve been told is that he wants to use it for grazing cattle,” she said.
