Denver International Airport asks council committee to amend term lengths for 14 concession contracts

Denver International Airport officials told the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Sept. 17 that they are asking the city to amend contract term lengths for 14 concession agreements now and bring a second tranche of 14 later.

The request comes after the airport set new standard contract lengths for newly issued agreements effective Jan. 1, 2024 — nine years for retail and 12 years for food and beverage — to reflect sharply higher build‑out costs. The airport said some existing concessionaires fall into a “middle” group that missed the Jan. 1 deadline and cannot recover prior capital investments under the old terms.

Pamela Deshant, senior vice president of concessions at Denver International Airport, said the airport has been “working hard to modernize the program, to bring in new concessionaires, more small, local businesses.” She told the committee the one remaining modernization item was contract term length and that the airport reassessed its portfolio before proposing changes to the middle group of concessionaires. “These are people who came to us and said, we’re stuck in this middle earth,” Deshant said. “Of all the concession contracts, we grouped them into 3 separate buckets. Today, we’re going to talk about the second group.”

Why it matters: airport…