Former City Councilmember Ed Montanari, who leads the task force, credited officials for \u201cputting together a great group of people that care, listen, learn and are working together to solve a very interesting issue.\u201d He believes St. Petersburg is Florida\u2019s only municipality to join airports in studying the AAM industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the space we have out there at Albert Whitted Airport, you\u2019re going to have to do some modifications,\u201d Montanari said. \u201cYou might not be able to build or develop as many hangars, and there\u2019s always been a waiting list for hangars<\/a> out there.\u201d<\/p>\n A city consultant identified the area in red (top left) as the most logical place for a vertiport at Albert Whitted Airport. Screengrab, city documents.<\/p>\n AAM is a rapidly evolving aerospace sector that typically utilizes eVTOLs to move people and cargo. Montanari noted that the aircraft, which require very little take-off and landing space, could also play a role in public safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mayor Ken Welch appointed Montanari, a former fighter and commercial<\/a> pilot, to the city\u2019s task force in January<\/a>. Welch told the Catalyst in May<\/a> that he has had \u201ca lot of conversations with our emergency management folks in the city and county about what role Albert Whitted would play in disaster recovery if we were to lose two bridges, which is a scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple Ospreys, larger planes that also take off and land vertically, accompanied Marine One when former President Joe Biden landed at Albert Whitted after Hurricane Milton. Councilmember Gina Driscoll said Nov. 13 that the task force should discuss sharing space with local hospitals, which also utilize the airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n Incorporating a large vertiport with electrical infrastructure into the city-owned facility could prove challenging. Montanari said an air taxi operation would also require additional parking.\u00a0<\/p>\n Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations would prevent a vertiport on the airport\u2019s north side, facing toward the St. Pete Pier. The southern side could potentially accommodate a facility, provided eVTOLs do not interfere with current flight paths.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe could still operate eVTOLs out of Albert Whitted Airport, but not have a vertiport,\u201d Montanari explained. \u201cWe could operate like we operate helicopters now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He said the city needs \u201cmore specific criteria\u201d for heliport zoning, and \u201cwe don\u2019t have anything in our code when it comes to vertiports.\u201d The task force will include those recommendations in its final report.\u00a0<\/p>\n A map highlighting areas with zoning that allows heliports. Screengrab, city documents.<\/p>\n Driscoll suggested using Albert Whitted as a \u201cstop\u201d for eVTOLs. While that is an option, Montanari said the leading manufacturers have partnered with airlines, which could require additional space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Derek Kilborn, urban planning manager, said the zoning department could revise land development regulations to accommodate AAM advancements. \u201cMaximizing flexibility is something we always try to do through code writing, so we would absolutely do that here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe could start with where heliports are allowed today, since they\u2019re similar,\u201d Kilborn continued. \u201cThen, after experiencing that incorporation, expand it out \u2026 but we did offer that as a conservative approach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Councilmember Mike Harting questioned when the world would see eVTOLs humming through the skies. \u201cParts of this are going very fast,\u201d Montanari replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n He noted that several companies, including Walmart, have already launched pilot programs for package delivery. Montanari believes the FAA is \u201cat least a year, maybe two\u201d away from certifying the aircraft.\u00a0<\/p>\n While he compared eVTOLs to flying cars in The Jetsons cartoon, Montanari also stressed that the industry \u201cis being developed very, very quickly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The President issued two executive orders<\/a> to advance AAM and eVTOLs in June. Those require the FAA to select and support five related projects by Dec. 3. Experts expect it to become a $137 billion industry by 2035.\u00a0<\/p>\n State officials have prioritized using the skies above the I-4 corridor to relieve roadway congestion. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is building two vertiports<\/a>, a passenger terminal, parking areas, charging stations and research and development hangars at its Polk County SunTrax site.\u00a0<\/p>\n FDOT\u2019s aerial network plan includes testing, validating and scaling air taxi, cargo and emergency service use cases. The first phase incorporates St. Pete-Clearwater and Tampa International Airports.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States has always been a leader in aerospace and aviation, and we don\u2019t want to be second in this area,\u201d Montanari said. \u201cBut the state is also very much a leader in this space. They\u2019re really pouring a lot of money into making sure Florida is ready for this<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The task force met Monday to review its recommendations for compatibility planning, zoning, land use and a regulatory framework. City council members will hear a final report Jan. 22.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A task force formed to help ensure St. Petersburg can capitalize on the nascent advanced air mobility industry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-51664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-1311-e1763491672932.png\")
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