Up in the Air Branson will build its airport, but some people—including the mayor—aren't sure if the deal was a good one for the city. By Tiesha Miller 417 Magazine Illustration Leah Long The rumors of a Branson airport circulated for so long that as the years passed it seemed like a pie in the sky. No more. After a seven-year fight on the behalf of Aviations Facility Co., Steve Peet, president and CEO of Branson Airport LLC, broke ground on July 17 for the privately financed and operated airport just south of Hollister and east of Highway 65. The opening is planned for May 2009. The biggest hurdle in securing the airport was securing funds. Citigroup has underwritten $113 million in revenue bonds that were purchased by institutional investors, and the equity portion, $26 million and the land was donated to Taney County by magazine mogul Glenn Patch and is now leased back to the development company. But even though it's the country's first privately developed and operated commercial airport, the City of Branson will still be contributing. In 2006, then-mayor Lou Shaffer signed a pay-for-performance agreement. For every inbound passenger, the City of Branson is to pay $8.24—an amount that was calculated using the projected tax revenue generated by each visitor. Annually, the amount cannot exceed $2 million, and the city is more or less locked into the agreement for 30 years. Taney County declined a similar deal. On the surface, the city's agreement makes sense. In general, the consensus on the airport is pretty unified. Most everyone seems to see it as a great thing for Branson's economy. People coming into Branson bring revenue, including that of the tax variety. Everyone wins. But it's not the airport that concerns Mayor Raeanne Presley. She's in full support. It's the deal the city made that concerns her. "It's not specific enough to who we'll pay for," Presley says. "We don't know if [the inbound passengers] are new to the area. If I get on an airplane, and I fly back, then the city has to pay $8.24 for me. But I'm not growing the economy." She also points out that while this sort of deal isn't rare, she thinks the per-passenger dollar amount is too high. The deal also begs the question, what happens if Branson isn't the main attraction? Today, it seems unlikely that anything else in the area will draw more visitors than Branson, but there's no guarantee the situation will stay that way. What happens if everyone heads south? "I don't want to dream what things will be like in 30 years," Presley says. "You don't know what will be built. A big destination resort might go up next to Big Cedar." The idea of a new major attraction coming into Branson isn't a big pie in the sky either. Stephen Critchfield is with Commercial One Brokers, the commercial real estate firm that landed the new Branson Convention Center and hotel. Because of confidentiality agreements, Critchfield says he cannot release the names of the companies he's working with, but he says one in particular is looking to build a major attraction in the Branson area, and it's in part due to the access the airport provides. "Basically, [the market they were shopping] was in a day's drive of Branson," Critchfield says. "Now with the airport, Branson makes additional sense to them as well. Obviously, coming years will tell." There's no saying for sure yet whether the attraction would fall within the city limits and if the incoming visitors would take their money into the city proper. The concern is that the city will end up paying for inbound passengers without reaping maximum benefit. The argument can go in many directions. On one hand, $8.24 per passagner may be a small trade for the low-risk option of having a privately funded airport from which the city's economy gains. Peet also says the agreement was hugely influential in securing the bond investors because they could guarantee a source of revenue. The city won't take a loss if the airport fails because it only pays if people actually fly into the airport. Should Branson officials have been more specific on which inbound passengers qualified, and was $8.24 the ideal magic number? The question still remains whether the city's move was business-savvy. -- http://www.bransonedge.com http://www.bransonmissouri.blogspot.com