Old Everglades Jetport site targeted for revival in air show plan

Miami-Dade officials are traveling to Paris in a bid to revive the idea of bringing a global aviation expo to the Miami area, this time using a remote airport so far west that much of it sits in Collier County.

Surrounded by the Everglades, the former Everglades Jetport was once the subject of an epic battle between environmentalists and Miami-Dade County, which wanted to build the world’s largest airport there. Now Miami-Dade wants to make it a staging ground for an international display of jet options for large buyers of aircraft, including foreign military. Long a pet project in Miami-Dade’s economic-development circles, the idea of a Miami Air Show would be to create the Western Hemisphere’s version of the popular Paris Air Show.

The original plan was to put the show in Homestead, but the Pentagon scuttled that scenario in 2011 when it rejected use of the runways at its semi-retired air base there. Without the base’s cooperation, county officials were left without a viable site to pursue.

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