The Sitka Assembly approved a new airport lease between the city and the state on February 27, clearing the way for the airport expansion project, which kicked off this week. 

The city is getting a multi-million dollar federal grant to revamp the airport terminal. But before the project could get off the ground, the city needed to update its lease with the state’s Department of Transportation. The city owns the terminal building, but it leases land from the state to operate the terminal. The 55 year lease was set to expire this summer. 

The city spent months negotiating the terms of the new lease, which includes some changes to airport procedures in order to meet requirements from the Federal Aviation Administration, like additional security and charging airport vendors “concession” fees. 

Initially, the additional concession fees were going to be collected by the state, but the city’s administrator John Leach said he fought for that revenue to stay in Sitka.

“We were able to work that issue out. So the only change from the draft that you saw late last year and this current draft is those concessions have now been allowed to stay within the city’s airport terminal fund,” Leach told the assembly.

Airport parking in Sitka is currently free. Plans to develop a parking fee structure are not included in this lease, but that doesn’t mean that change couldn’t happen eventually.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done there,” Leach said. “My discussion with the state is if they would like to explore how they’d like to manage that lot, and if they’re able to set up a working system, then we would entertain that option in the future. But right now, the lot still remains under control of the state.”

Assembly member Thor Christianson said he wasn’t crazy about the new lease, but the city didn’t have many other options. 

“The only alternative is to give the building back to the state and have them run it like they run the ferry service, which is not ideal,” Christianson said. “I know that as we go through this, there’s gonna be some complained about stuff, and my answer to that is, ‘Me too.'” 

The assembly approved the new airport lease unanimously.