The Banning City Council on Tuesday, March 26, will consider finalizing an exclusive negotiating agreement with Moreno Valley developer Iddo Benzeevi to advise the city about how to develop city-owned airport property.
The agreement would give Fairview Holdings, of which Benzeevi is chief executive officer, a two-year window to come up with a plan to develop about 185 acres around Banning Municipal Airport, which Fairview is calling the Morongo Inland Port and Intermodal Center.
The agreement includes the airport itself.
Any proposed development agreement derived from the negotiations would have to come back to the council for a public hearing and vote before it would be final, said Bill Manis, the city’s economic development director.
One of Benzeevi’s companies constructed the 1.8 million-square-foot Skechers North American Operations Headquarters along Highway 60 in Moreno Valley in 2011. He is planning the next generation of logistics facilities totaling more than 40 million square feet on 3,000 acres of property.
The Banning agreement does not outline specific uses.
“It doesn’t say anything about … we want to see X, Y and Z,” Manis said. “We want them to tell us.”
Mayor Debbie Franklin said Banning is considering intermodal transportation uses because the city sits along Interstate 10 and rail lines.
“What we want is highest and best use for the area that generates revenue and jobs for the city,” Franklin said.
Goods delivered to ports in Long Beach and San Pedro must be moved out to the rest of the country.
“The idea is if they are coming through anyway, what can we do to facilitate moving them along,” Franklin said.
If goods are delivered by train, there might not be enough trucks to immediately load up and continue toward a destination, so there would be a need for a place to store goods temporarily, she said. That could include warehouses.
The study also will look at airport land use.
The city solicited proposals and received three that were reviewed last year before the staff recommended Fairview Holdings. The City Council approved the agreement with the company last November.
But because three new council members were elected that month, staff decided to seek an endorsement this month from the new council.
Council members Barbara Hanna and John Machisic did not seek reelection and incumbent Don Robinson lost his re-election bid. The new council members are Ed Miller, Don M. Peterson and Art Welch, who has served on the council previously.
“We have to make sure that the full council buys into the concept,” Franklin said.
The council will meet at 5 p.m. at the Banning Civic Center, 99 E. Ramsey St.
The city owns three parcels east of Hathaway Street and along Barbour Avenue – the 127.15-acre airport site and two vacant parcels of 39 and 20 acres, a staff report prepared by Manis states.
In 2011, the Banning council met with the Morongo Band of Cahuilla Indians’ tribal council to talk about how to make the municipal airport more appealing to pilots. The tribe, which operates Morongo Casino & Resort about five miles from the airport, also owns land near the airport.
Benzeevi has a separate negotiation agreement with the tribe, and tribal lands east of the airport may be part of a development proposal.
The proposal is to include at least 1 million square feet of “warehouse and trailer/container storage space serving cargo and bulk freight distribution; manufacturing; retail store space; office space and secondary business facilities serving the intermodal logistics center,” the report states. If approved, Benzeevi would pay a $75,000 good faith deposit.
According to a letter submitted by Benzeevi to city officials, the project could generate as much as $200 million in economic benefit and between 1,300 and 2,000 permanent jobs at completion.
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