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Issue: 1108 Date: 11/17/2011
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MidAmerica losses are $146 million and climbing
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After 13 years and more than $146 million in cumulative losses, is it time to pull the plug on MidAmerica St. Louis Airport?
And if not now, then how many more millions of lost dollars, over how many years, can St. Clair County taxpayers absorb?
These are questions raised by airport critics who are impatient with the airport's unbroken track record of deficits. And some of the critics are calling for the airport's closure, or simply turning it over to the adjacent Scott Air Force Base.
For their part, St. Clair County leaders aren't anywhere near to throwing the towel on MidAmerica.
But even if they were, they would still face a huge roadblock: a Federal Aviation Administration rule that would require the county to pay back the market value of the airport because the land for it was bought with FAA grants.
For now, county leaders are painting an upbeat picture of the airport's future.
After a frustrating decade spent trying to market the airport as a passenger hub, St. Clair County leaders are seeing progress in raising the airport's profile as a cargo and manufacturing facility.
Last year, the county lured aerospace giant Boeing to launch an aircraft subassembly plant the airport warehouse, resulting in 45 jobs as of last week, with the workforce set to increase to 100 by 2013.
Then two weeks ago, the county announced that it had signed a deal with North Bay Produce Inc., an international produce cooperative based in Traverse City, Mich.
The deal calls for North Bay to build a nearly $6 million warehouse at the airport to distribute fruits and vegetables from North America and South America.
As many as 80 new jobs could be created by next year, according to the Mark Girardin, North Bay's president.
But here's the rub: No matter how much development occurs, the airport will likely continue to lose millions of dollars each year, surviving only with the help of taxpayer subsidies, said Richard Ellerbrake, the leader of the group Citizens for Smart Growth.
That's why Ellerbrake wants St. Clair County to shut down the $313 million airport -- saving nearly $900,000 in annual salary and benefit expenses -- and turn it over to the adjacent Scott Air Force Base, whose personnel already operate the airport control tower.
"If the county were really doing its job, I think they would assign a high level task force to investigate all the possibilities on how we get out of this thing," Ellerbrake said. |
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