Berks to help pay for airport plan
Would provide strategy for future
The Reading Regional Airport Authority, with some financial help from the county, is embarking on a process to create a strategic plan that will impact the future of the airport.
And it could lead to the end of the authority.
With the agency facing a grim financial future, members of the authority presented a letter to the commissioners last spring informing them that they had voted to recommend the county consider dissolving the entity. They said they would instead like to see the Bern Township airport operate as a department of the county.
The commissioners said then that the proposal would have to be studied extensively.
A key factor would be the county taking on the authority’s significant debt, which dates back more than two decades and would be paid off using county reserve funds. The county, which owns the airport and ultimately guarantees the outstanding debt, created the authority to manage and operate the airfield.
Back in 2000, the airport authority borrowed $8 million to renovate the passenger terminal. But soon after that investment was made, airlines ended their commercial passenger service to Reading.
Mounting debt
The debt was a big hit to the authority’s bottom line.
Members of the authority have told the commissioners that the stress is mounting as the agency struggles to make payments on the debt. They said last year that the situation was becoming untenable, with projections showing that the authority will become financially unsustainable in the next four to seven years.
The commissioners said then that they would need to see a business plan revealing what having the county pay off the debt would mean for the future of the airport.
On Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to cover half of the cost of creating such a plan.
Pam Shupp Menet, the director of economic development for the county and a member of the airport authority, said there have been several exciting proposals at the airport that have come to light.
Reached after the meeting, newly installed executive director of the airport Zack Tempesco said some of those exciting proposals are still in the works and have not been shared with the public at this point. But he did say the authority is expecting a lot of development around the airport in general.
“We have at least two different developers looking to build hangar space, and we have multiple interest along the Route 183 corridor and at the Berks Park 183 industrial site,” he said. “While some of those things won’t directly impact operations at the airport, they will help business overall.”
Hiring firm
At Tuesday’s meeting, Menet said the county and authority have discussed the need to take all these positive things and develop a plan for the future. That’s why a strategic plan needs to be created.
The authority has decided to hire BBP Solutions, a York County firm that specializes in aviation development, to establish a strategic plan that is estimated to take 12 to 14 weeks to complete. The county will pay $5,450 of the $10,900 contract.
“As we took a look at where we might be able to go with the authority and treating the airport as the true economic and community development asset that it is for Berks County, it was important that we bring in a group that not only has aviation experience but also has a background in marketing,” Menet told the commissioners.
Tempesco said he’s hopeful the strategic plan will give the county and the authority an outside perspective on the potential future for the facility.
“We’re on the right path, but we want someone from the outside to give us a new perspective and develop this strategy for us so that we can move forward,” he said. “The airport has a lot of history, and we want to preserve that history while building on top of that infrastructure. And that means we need to figure out where we need to be five, 10, 15, 20 years from now.”
Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach said the strategic plan is imperative to any decisions made by the county.
“We need to better understand the best use and best way to operate that facility because, at the end of the day, the airport is owned by the county,” he said. “This will be a key part in being able to move forward.”
Commissioner Michael Rivera said he supports the study. He said the plan will give the authority and the county a blueprint as to what areas they should focus on and what growth would look like in the decades to come.
“I think the strategic plan is important and we should move forward with it,” he said.