Aircraft refurbisher takes off, property for sale.

The former home of Spectrum Aviation at the Sault Ste. Marie airport is on the selling block after the well-known aircraft refurbisher unexpectedly pulled up stakes over the summer and vacated their hangar space in only a matter of days.

Two-year-old Spectrum Aviation closed up shop in mid-June amid rumours of financial troubles associated with the company's owner and president Mike Bird.

"He (Bird) was there (on a) Friday and gone on Monday," says Jerry Dolcetti, president and CEO of the Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corp. "We came back on Monday and found out the building was empty."

Specializing in exterior and interior aircraft painting and detailing, Spectrum was a tenant in a 24,640-square-foot hangar owned by Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. They started business at the airport in August, 1999.

"The manner in which he left leads some people to suspect that he was in a bit of difficulty in running the business," says Dolcetti.

Bird told Northern Ontario Business in a 1999 interview, not long after starting the company, that the hangar was the only unoccupied facility in Canada with a large affordable space and a runway long enough to accommodate aircraft as large as an Airbus 320.

Starting out with 15 employees, the company worked on Dash 8 aircraft and was vying for contracts with many regional and major North American carriers.

Renamed Spectrum Aircraft Refinishing Services by the spring of 2000, the company boasted in a subsequent interview they had completed a $225,000 contract with Air Ontario to paint six Dash 8 100s.

Al Hubley, assistant general manager of the Sault Airport Development Corp., says that on some big contracts, Spectrum employed as many as 50 people.

"Business-wise he had planes in and out of there all the time," says Hubley.

Most of the company's equipment was leased or rented, Hubley says, but Spectrum made some building improvements, installing an air-filtration system and floor drains according to Ministry of Environment specifications.

Just days after the company ceased operations, Hubley says, some former Spectrum employees gained access to the hangar and ransacked it.

Spectrum Aviation was in the second year of a five-year lease with ONTC with an option to purchase, which is what they were negotiating with the provincial Crown corporation when they folded shop, according to Stuart Kidd, ONTC's manager of corporate realty.

"We were working on it to get it into (Bird's) hands," says Kidd. "It sounded like a good deal for the Sault, the airport, Spectrum and certainly for us to get us out from under the property, and everything fell apart and they sort of left."

Kidd says ONTC is pursuing the matter legally with Bird and his associates for monies owing on their lease agreement dating back to June.

When contacted at his new job with an aircraft refurbishing company at Gravenhurst's Muskoka Airport, Bird defined Kidd's comments as "not even true" and said he had no knowledge of any legal action being taken against him.

"Haven't heard nothing about that," says Bird.

"I know (Kidd's) been trying to sell the building and to my knowledge there are Spectrum employees trying to start their own business, but it will fail miserably because the industry is just dead."

Bird insists the only person he has to legally answer to is a former business partner in the venture.

As a Dash 8 specialist operating within a regional market, Bird says Spectrum never had the resources or equipment to refurbish smaller planes and when the economy went sour in April, so did their business.

"The money ran out," says Bird, explaining why the company closed shop so quickly.

"But the bottom line is the company was in financial difficulty since day one. The company was always under the gun because of the expense of the building. The building is what killed the company. It wasn't possible to run that business at that level of overhead."

Bird claims he had invested $100,000 in leasehold improvements into the hangar. Unable to secure a small-business loan to keep the company afloat, and with a shortage of planes, Bird says he had no option but to leave.

Bird says the issue has subsequently degenerated into a tangle of legal problems and "mud-slugging" with his former partner.

Spectrum's-roots are in southwestern Ontario where Bird's father, Bruce, had more than 40 years experience refinishing aircraft at their headquarters near Tiilsonburg.

Kidd says ONTC's first interest is to sell the hangar for around $600,000, which includes more than 12,300 square feet of office, storage and machine space on two floors, but they would entertain a long-term arrangement similar to Spectrum's, to lease the entire building.

Though the building has not officially been advertised for sale, aside from a 'for sale' sign on the property, Kidd intends to post the hangar on the ONTC telecommunications division's Web site. The Sault airport corporation is partnering with ONTC to secure a new occupant for the space, and already some parties have shown interest in the building, but only on a short-term lease or partial purchase basis.

"It's too bad this business didn't go ahead," says Kidd. "This would've grown and brought in other related business," similar to the success experienced by North Bay's Air Base Property Corp.

Spectrum's sudden departure in no way represents a setback to the city's industrial marketing strategy, which includes bringing in value-added businesses in the aeronautics sector, according to Tom Hernden, the Sault's economic development officer.

"The Spectrum situation was due to their own internal circumstances and certainly the airport is still considered an underutilized asset," Hernden says. "There still is some great potential there, and we don't see this as a blow at all."

The city is in the process of hiring an industrial marketing co-ordinator who will in turn hire consultants to chase down North America-wide leads in various sectors including the aviation industry.