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It is a privately-owned airport that's open to the public. So not eligible for FAA grants, I would assume.

There are LOTS of those (privately owned, open to the public) all over the country. Locally, we have plenty of other examples: Apex, in Silverdale, Norman Grier (Crest) in Kent, Eisenberg (Oak Harbor). Sequim Valley (Sequim). Shady Acres (Spanaway). There are more, but you get the idea -- it's not unheard of. Worth noting: almost all of those have airpark residences, so there's a source of funding (and a captive user-base). Don't think that's an option at FirstAir. So how do the others stay viable? -- well, Eisenberg (the only one in that group that doesn't have airport homes) has always seemed to me to be just b-a-r-e-l-y above water, forever (through several owners). They've got a handful of old hangars and tiedowns, and fuel sales (off-and-on over the years), not much income I'm sure -- probably similar to FirstAir.

Buying an airport does not seem to be a rational business decision. Neither is buying a personal airplane, yet most of us somehow got past that awkward fact... Most likely the only way to make a profit by buying this airport would be to buy it, wait for land values to appreciate, then sell it off to be developed, probably for housing...which is where we are now (land values around here continue to go up and that's not going to change anytime soon...although if someone wanted to operate it as an airport, it would be good to know that one could always get their investment back). Don't know of any for-profit business model that would work for a small airport like this - but would love to be proved wrong!

There are other reasons for doing things besides turning a profit. I suspect buying FirstAir Field would require the same kind of judgement/logic reconciliation that we all went through when buying our planes.