Aviation Community Origins

Craig Fuller shares how a simple search for media center land evolved into a massive aviation community development project.

"Originally I didn't plan on being in real estate. We wanted to build a media center connected to a runway because for flying magazine, people care about the airplanes. We wanted to create a video center to connect it to an airport. The problem was none of the airports in the community - 5 regional community airports around Chattanooga - were willing to do anything.

I was looking for about 50 acres and came across this piece of land that had 1,500 acres, priced at $3,650,000. I drove up there and it reminded me of this resort in East Tennessee called Blackberry Farm, which my wife absolutely loves. That was the original inspiration - we wanted to create a fly-in community with a runway and home sites connected to the runway that had that Blackberry Farm inspired experience.

We bought the land for $3.6 million, borrowing from the bank. We advertised it in January 2022 with ads in our own magazine. We wrote a story about building a resort, focusing on the amenities around the experience rather than the aviation aspect. We didn't expect much response, but we had over 300 inbound inquiries from that one ad, and people started signing contracts to reserve their spots. That's when we knew we had a winner."