Opa Locka West Airport

The closure was a result of multiple factors. Primarily, its military purpose as a training field ended after World War II, making it redundant. Subsequently, the rapid westward urban sprawl of Miami-Dade County significantly increased the land's value for real estate development, making a small, private airfield economically unviable. The final step was the land's sale and redevelopment, which included its excavation.

The former airport site has been completely and irrevocably redeveloped. The land that once comprised the runways and airfield was excavated to create a large, rectangular man-made lake, sometimes identified on maps as Lake Patricia. The surrounding area is now a densely populated suburban community, part of the Country Club of Miami, featuring residential homes, apartment complexes, and golf courses. There are no visible remnants of the original airport.

Opa-locka West Airport's primary historical significance is as a World War II-era military airfield. It served as an Outlying Landing Field (OLF) for the much larger Naval Air Station Miami (which later became Marine Corps Air Station Miami, and is now the active Opa-locka Executive Airport, KOPF). As an OLF, it was a crucial support facility for the massive pilot training programs of the 1940s. Student naval aviators would have used its unpaved runways to practice fundamental skills like takeoffs, landings (touch-and-gos), and emergency procedures away from the congested airspace of the main base. After the war, it transitioned to a private civil airfield for a period before falling into disuse.

There are zero plans or prospects for reopening the airport. The site's physical transformation into a deep lake and the extensive, high-density residential and commercial development surrounding it make any future aviation use physically and logistically impossible.