ST. LOUIS — An aldermanic committee on Monday morning gave a quick endorsement to Boeing Co.’s plan to lease about 158 acres at ºüÀêÊÓƵ Lambert International Airport for a major expansion of its manufacturing facilities.
After a 15-minute hearing, the Transportation and Commerce Committee voted 5-0 to send the lease legislation to the full Board of Aldermen.
The panel’s chairman, Shane Cohn of the Dutchtown area, said Boeing wants passage this month of both the lease and a ºüÀêÊÓƵ County property tax break plan to help pay for the $1.8 billion expansion.
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The County Council is expected to vote Tuesday on the tax incentives.
Cohn said the company wants to include information on city and county approval included with its application to the U.S. Department of Defense for selection for the project.
Boeing has been vague on details on its potential project, which comes as the aerospace industry gears up to compete to build the next round of U.S. fighter jets.
The only speaker to address the panel was Jerry Beckmann, Lambert’s deputy director for planning and development, who ran down basic details on the proposed deal with the city-owned airport. No one from Boeing took part in the session, which was held by teleconference.
Under the proposal, Boeing would pay at least $2.63 million a year to lease about 158 acres. The lease calls for an initial rent payment in 2026 or when the company begins using the new complex, whichever is sooner.
After that, at least that amount would be paid annually during the rest of the 17-year lease, totaling more than $39 million. There also could be periodic increases in the rent tied to the consumer price index. Boeing would have options to continue the lease in five-year increments through 2070.
Nearly 110 acres in the lease are on the eastern end of the airport in Berkeley, bought over the years to mitigate airport noise on nearby residents.
Most of the remainder is on Lambert’s northern end and includes vacant buildings used decades ago, first by Curtiss-Wright Corp. to build World War II aircraft. The lease indicates that the buildings would be torn down to make way for the new complex.
The agreement also gives Boeing the option of leasing an additional 28 acres, with an annual rent payment of about $369,000 plus inflation-related increases.
The plan to use the northern tract could be complicated by an ongoing legal fight between Lambert and another company, Bi-National Gateway Terminal LLC, which claims it still has a valid lease to develop an international cargo terminal there.
Bi-National’s president, Ricardo Nicolopulos, last month notified Boeing that the lawsuit it filed in 2019 against the city is pending. Attorneys for the city, in filings in ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Court, have maintained that the Bi-National lease was terminated by Lambert earlier in 2019 because the firm failed to carry out certain requirements in the agreement.
Bi-National had planned to rehab the old buildings, which are on the National Register for Historic Places.
State and federal officials said buildings on the register can be torn down. But if “federal monies are attached to the property,†the National Park Service website says, the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation must be allowed to comment. A council spokeswoman said in this situation the Federal Aviation Administration would look into the issue.