Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority discussed hiring property lease manager: Employee would oversee properties, work to fill buildings with tenants

Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority board members agreed Tuesday that hiring a property lease manager would be a good idea.

“This is a work in progress,” said Eric Johnson, MTAA president. “It is in its infancy.”

The manager would handle properties on the “non-aeronautical side,” Johnson told board members.

He also said the person would oversee and manage properties and work to fill the buildings with new tenants.

“This is a draft,” Johnson said of the job description he handed out to board members. “We certainly need to tweak it.”

The salary for the position would be between $40,000 and $60,000, which would include benefits and incentives.

“We will continue working on this and bring it back to the board for review (in April),” Johnson said.

Johnson also gave board members a brief update on Topeka-Chicago flights. He said the United Airlines flights in January and February were “horrible” — January had a 14 percent cancellation rate. But things are looking up, he said. From March 12 through Monday, flights have been at capacity or oversold.

Johnson said business travelers haven’t supported the flights as well as he would like, but the leisure travelers are “very supportive.”

Board members also:

■ Discussed the time frame people have had to wait for taxi service to and from the airport. Johnson told board members that some people have had to wait nearly two hours for service. He said two shuttle companies have contacted him about offering service to area hotels and picking up and dropping off at customers’ houses.

■ Approved spending about $10,000, which is reimbursable, for improvements made to a space leased by the Transportation Security Administration. The money will be used to have a company oversee work, as well as fiber installation and installation of a “complex lock” on a door. The money will be reimbursed by TSA through a two-year firm term lease.

http://cjonline.com