Read more about the proposal and the status of Vision 2025 projects. It is fair to consider charging airport industrial complex tenants more rent if they receive Vision2 funding, Tulsa County Commissioner Fred Perry said Monday. "We still want to make it very attractive for them to stay here," Perry said. "I think some people have been under the assumption that we would simply do that - put all that great amount of money into it - and then not expect anything in return.
"I think we are going to be asking for commitments in return and possibly (an) increase in rent if the tenant has a profitable operation." Perry said he was responding to a Tulsa World report that city leases with industrial tenants in Air Force Plant No. 3 require the tenants to maintain the building. In the article, City Councilor Blake Ewing said that if the city makes a low-rent deal with a tenant in exchange for jobs, part of the equation needs to be requiring them to make needed repairs to the property. On the other hand, Ewing said, if the city is going to pick up major maintenance costs, it needs rent income to pay for it. Perry said he is not proposing that the rent increases be enough to pay back the Vision2 investment but that the tenants pay more rent than they currently do. "One city councilor seems to be assuming that we wouldn't be doing that, and in this one commissioner's viewpoint, we should be doing that," Perry said. Perry said he shared his view with Mayor Dewey Bartlett in August, before county commissioners voted to call the Vision2 election, and that Bartlett concurred. Bartlett said Monday that he does not remember the specifics of the conversation but that he is open to discussing the issue - and any others that might come up - once the tenants' lease agreements expire. "What I don't think would be appropriate for us to do is to make changes to the existing leases," Bartlett said. "We have to be fair and we don't want to be greedy, and we don't want to do something that is going to chase somebody off," Bartlett said. Vision2 would upgrade the 300-acre building's decades-old roof, electrical system and air handling equipment. The building houses manufacturing facilities of two companies: IC Bus, the largest manufacturer of school buses in North America, and Spirit AeroSystems, the world's largest supplier of commercial airplane assemblies and components. As long as IC Bus employs 1,200 people, the lease sets the company's rent at $1 a year. Spirit, which employs about 2,700 people, pays $14,211 annually to the city for its portion of Air Force Plant No. 3 and other buildings. The company also pays a $623,646 market rate to the Tulsa Airport Improvement Trust for another series of buildings south of the American Airlines maintenance base. Both companies have spent heavily on the buildings. Information about when leases expire for IC Bus and Spirit AeroSystems was not available Monday. Suk Singh, manager of the Tulsa IC Bus plant, said he has not discussed the possibility of raising the company's rent with anyone. "We would prefer that the rent not increase," Singh said. "We have our own set of challenges with the business." Singh said he could not comment on what negotiations might occur should the Vision2 package be approved by voters Nov. 6. Perry said the commitments he had in mind include the companies' staying in Tulsa and retaining a certain number of workers at the airport complex. If Vision2 passes, the city and the county should sit down with the airport tenants to discuss those issues even before projects go out to bid, Perry said. "Once the work has been done and the lease agreement and the rental agreement come due and those tenants are profitable, I think it is fair to discuss a higher amount of rent coming to the taxpayers," Perry said. World Senior Writer Wayne Greene contributed to this story. Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313 a class="ArticleLink" href="mailto:[email protected]"[email protected] SUBHEAD: A county commissioner says it's fair to expect a return if the tenants benefit from the funding.
Copyright 2012 The Tulsa World
