The seem to have a sea plane festival, I'm going to have to look into that.

I was just down at the city planing department discussing plans to subdivide and what type of density is allowed for the zone - then little by little the onion peels came unraveling as the city began to go over all of the different department i would need to check with - all the different fees involved at the various levels   of construction - and none of it was a guarantee that it would be approved without having to dump thousands of more dollars into the project.

Drawing a sketch of the work you planing to do.

My first suggestion would be: buy a plane ticket and get over there to check 'em out.

Distance isn't an issue as I live a 45min plane ride away from Rochester so the back and forth isn't a big deal to me.

Owning property which they can't visit without getting on a plane may discourage them.

It's not something you'll be able to jump up off a plane and start talking about how much money you can make.

It used to have a lot of industry when McDonnell Douglas used to test fly their planes (DC-10, MD-80, etc.) over the Colorado River. 

That property is also in the flood plane, which is part of the cashflow issue.  

I've been to Michigan a few times and you can see the difference when the plane is landing.