Costerisan Farms Airport

The primary reason for the airport's closure was urban encroachment and the increasing value of the land for commercial and institutional development. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the city of Bakersfield experienced significant suburban expansion to the southwest, making the farmland where the airport was located prime for redevelopment. The land was subsequently sold and developed.

The site of the former Costerisan Farms Airport has been completely and irreversibly redeveloped. The land is now occupied by the northern part of the California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) campus and the large commercial shopping center known as 'The Marketplace'. The former runway is now covered by university buildings, sports fields, major retail stores (such as Walmart and Target), restaurants, a cinema, and associated roads and parking lots, including Camino Media and the Stockdale Highway.

Costerisan Farms Airport was a private airfield established sometime between 1949 and 1954. Its main purpose was to support the extensive agricultural activities of Costerisan Farms, a prominent local farming operation. The airport primarily handled agricultural aircraft for crop dusting and spraying, as well as light single-engine aircraft for the farm's private use. The 1962 AOPA Airport Directory described it as having a single 2,200-foot bare runway. Its significance is representative of the numerous private, agricultural airstrips that were vital to the farming economy of California's Central Valley during the mid-20th century, before urbanization repurposed much of the land.

There are zero prospects for the airport to reopen. The land has been fully developed for high-density institutional and commercial use for several decades. The existence of a major university campus, a sprawling retail center, and dense surrounding residential areas makes any future aviation use at this location impossible from a zoning, safety, and logistical standpoint.