Berks County Commissioner Proposes Swapping Millions in Reading Airport Debt for Land

Berks County Commissioner Mark C. Scott announced Thursday that he believes he has come up with a way to save the Reading Regional Airport from a future of financial hardship.

With the Reading Regional Airport Authority in the unavoidable position of having to choose between servicing its outstanding $4.28 million debt and effectively sustaining operations, the Douglass Township Republican proposed a plan that would require the county to use reserve funds to cover the financial obligation in return for a substantial amount of undeveloped land that surrounds the Bern Township airfield.

Scott said the land, which would be roughly equal to the outstanding debt, would then be turned over to the Berks County Industrial Development Authority to market and sell. The transfer, he said, would simplify the operations of the airport authority and increase the possibility of that land being developed.

"It has occurred to me, and probably many others, that the airport authority is not necessarily the appropriate party to manage substantial land holdings," he said at the weekly commissioners meeting. "There are substantial parcels with considerable market value outside the fence at the airfield that the authority has been trying — not terribly successfully — to sell for development. That could probably be performed better by an entity that has real estate management and development as its primary purpose."

His colleagues appeared receptive to the plan.

While Commissioners Christian Y. Leinbach and Kevin S. Barnhardt were unwilling to throw their immediate support behind the proposal, they agreed that the board should discuss it in more detail at an upcoming budget and operations meeting. They also suggested that members of the airport authority be present at that meeting to gauge their interest in such an arrangement.

Previously, the commissioners agreed they were prepared to offer help. But before they would decide whether to pay off the debt, which the county ultimately guarantees, they wanted to see a business plan revealing what the authority would do with a much-improved financial outlook.

The debt stems from the decision nearly 20 years ago to borrow $8 million to renovate the passenger terminal at the airport.

Right around then, regional and national airlines ended their commercial passenger service to Reading. Before that happened, local residents could park free at Reading Regional Airport, catch a small passenger plane to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and fly to anywhere in the world. The debt was a big hit to the authority's bottom line, especially because passenger traffic through the terminal was lost as a revenue stream.

———

©2019 the Reading Eagle (Reading, Pa.)

Visit the Reading Eagle (Reading, Pa.) at readingeagle.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.