Marion council sets public hearing to solicit proposals for city-owned property including airport runway

The City of Marion City Council on Feb. 6 approved Resolution No. 32251, setting a date to receive and consider proposals for the disposal and development of city-owned real property in the Collins Road Extension Urban Renewal Area, including the city runway.

Councilman Arford summarized the work that led to the decision, saying the council convened an Airport Visioning Team in October 2022 that met repeatedly, solicited business surveys through the Marion Economic Development Corporation (Medco) and held a series of meetings with Luxair starting in February 2024. "We had worked over nominally 2 years plus in order to discern and understand the issues attendant that led us now to put out on RFP our the city property, which contains the runway," Arford said.

Arford described the AVT’s scope as including historical review, model operating budgets for municipal airports, management structures, phased capital-investment needs, and analysis of fiscal impacts on city debt and levy. He said the team met across eight sessions through September 2023 and later met repeatedly with Luxair to understand an operator’s interests, constraints and potential proposals.

Council members did not debate a different motion; the resolution was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote with one abstention. The motion as approved sets the public hearing and opens the city’s ability to receive proposals under the RFP process; specific RFP terms were not read into the record at the meeting.

Next steps described by council and staff are procedural: the council will hold the public hearing set by the resolution and will receive developer proposals for the specified city parcels. No sale or final contract was approved at the Feb. 6 meeting.