detroit to invest $4 million in city airport runway replacement

“We had been working on a lease for quite a while and then got to the very end where it was due to be signed and it was pulled off the table,” Muhs said. The city for many years had not offered leases to tenant firms at the airport, keeping them on month-to-month status that could be revoked at any time. and Britain, said he offered in 2016 to spend up to $4 million at City Airport to build a new terminal and hangars to accommodate larger corporate jets, but only if the city granted Avflight the security of a multiyear lease. The airport doesn't even have its own website, and the city does little or no marketing of the airfield.Ĭarl Muhs, president of Avflight, an Ann Arbor-based firm that operates multiple airports in the U.S. Nor has the city applied for a variety of multimillion-dollar federal and state grants that could help pay for needed upgrades to runways. The rejection of the offer from Avflight, the fixed-base operator at the east-side airfield still best known as Detroit City Airport, came amid complaints from airport advocates that the city is needlessly letting a potential asset deteriorate.Īmong other signs of neglect, the city hasn't staffed a Detroit Fire Department station on airport grounds for many years, which prevents some business aircraft from landing there because of insurance concerns. Young International Airport as Mayor Mike Duggan's team raised the idea of closing the airfield permanently. View Gallery: Detroit's old and crumbling City AirportĭETROIT - The City of Detroit recently turned down a $4-million offer from private investors to build a modern terminal and hangars at the long-neglected Coleman A.

Detroit to invest $4 million in city airport runway replacement