Things are changing at Tampa International Airport.
Louis E. Miller, who runs the place, and Tampa Westshore Associates Ltd., developers of a new shopping mall on airport land, seemed to acknowledge that June 14.
Miller came to the airport governing board with a deal from Tampa businessman Richard A. Corbett and his International Plaza partners to raise their own rent.
The Corbett partnership, Tampa West- shore Associates Ltd., and a Corbett company each consented to paying a combined $58-million more over the remaining 79 years on their land and development leases.
The concession comes after a year of bad publicity about lease terms for the 156 acres partially occupied by the 1.2-million-square-foot mall. Critics said the lease was a sweetheart deal cut for Corbett by airport officials with business or personal ties to him.
Critics, including federal auditors, a taxpayer group and a rival mall owner, estimated Corbett's deal would cost taxpayers more than $500-million. With the recent amendment, taxpayers may now get rooked for only $440-million or so. The airport won't start collecting the first of the higher rents, which will escalate every five years, for another 14 years.
The small sacrifice is a smart, if not desperate, move by Miller and Corbett.
The amendment was approved at what was likely the final aviation authority meeting for members W. Crosby Few and Stella Ferguson Thayer, a Corbett lawyer and former business partner.
Miller has defended the lease, which dates back to the 1980s, since taking over airport management in 1996. From now on, however, Miller may be working for authority members who won't look so charitably on Corbett.
Gov. Jeb Bush almost certainly will replace Thayer and Few with Republicans. Corbett, a lifelong Democrat who lately has tried to ingratiate himself with the Bush crowd, might not benefit from the change in guard.
Corbett still has to navigate the finer points of development deals for a proposed 250,000-square-foot hotel and other projects on the rest of the airport land he leases.
One Bush appointee on the authority, Westshore developer Alfred S. Austin, already has let it be known that he is less than thrilled with the Corbett deal and the recent concession.
"The problem is it doesn't start for 15 years," Austin was quoted in The Tampa Tribune as remarking about the lease amendment. "Monetarily, we're not getting the kind of return that a property like this should produce." While flexible on rents, the Corbett partnership continues to fight to keep secret a document that could show beyond any critic's estimate just how much taxpayers have been cheated on his airport dealings.
Tampa Westshore Associates has refused to produce the document for the Weekly Planet or, according to aviation authority lawyer Donald W. Stanley Jr., for airport officials.
Nevertheless, Stanley has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Planet seeking the document from either airport officials or from Corbett. A hearing on Stanley's motion has been set for July 16. Contact Staff Writer Francis X. Gilpin at 813-248-8888, ext. 130, or frangilpin @weeklyplanet.com.—Francis X. Gilpin
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2001.