New Bastion, a Florida-based real estate company seeking to develop land near the newly opened Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, has pulled the plug on all its property projects following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

"This oil spill has placed all of our development plans on hold, indefinitely," Elliot Bellen, CEO of New Bastion said in a statement issued on Monday (July 12).

For the past three years, New Bastion has been acquiring real estate within a 50-mile radius of the airport in expectation of a property boom and predicted 8,000 to 15,000 jobs would be created when it opened in May, but Bellen acknowledged the oil spill has put pay to these plans.

"We were prepared for the weak real estate market that we experienced the past several years, however our business model always anticipated the increased demand that would come with the added accessibility that the new airport would provide.

"Unfortunately, the complete impact of the oil spill will not be known for some time. To that end, New Bastion is expanding its business focus towards other business opportunities to immediately enhance shareholder value."

The move will be a major blow for Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, which is being developed as a business and leisure destination as much as it is a transportation gateway to Northwest Florida.

By Oliver Clark