Several prospective tenants are considering leasing at least a part of the former Hawker Beechcraft completion facility, according to marketing executives retained by Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
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But Mark Saviers of Sage Partners, a local commercial real estate marketing firm, said Tuesday that it likely will be many months before the activity yields one or more new tenants for the complex, which is costing the state's largest airport more than $1 million annually in lost revenue and utilities and maintenance.
Sage Partners and its partner, Jones Lange LaSalle, an international firm, have been marketing the property for less than five months and have said the process could take a year to 18 months.
"We're right on track," Saviers told members of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission on Tuesday. "We're pleased with the direction we're going."
Meanwhile, the commission voted to enlist Sage and Jones Lange LaSalle to market two other buildings, including the soon-to-be-vacated building that opened 20 years ago as a Southwest Airlines reservation center. The second is a 15,000-square-foot building on the airport's west side that most recently housed a heating and air conditioning company.
In addition to making money for the airport, leasing the buildings means jobs for the local economy, Saviers said.
No prospect has yet shown interest in leasing the entire Hawker Beechcraft facility, which encompasses more than 400,000 square feet of enclosed space that include specialized hangars, and office, production and storage areas. The property also includes 11.5 acres of apron space.
"Most are interested in part of the facility," said Marshall Saviers, another Sage executive.
Sage officials cited four prospects with whom they have worked but declined to identify them.
One toured the property two or three times but ultimately decided to build its own facility -- but delayed pursuing that, Mark Saviers said.
Sage documents listed three other preliminary prospects, and Sage is preparing tours for two of them. The property has been listed in six Internet databases focused on aviation and commercial properties, profiled in an aviation real estate newsletter, and has been the subject of thousands of email missives to commercial real estate professionals and featured on several online sites.
"Large international prospects take a long time to germinate," Mark Saviers said. "Our principal goal is your principal goal -- more jobs, more aviation-related jobs."
In response to a question from commission Chairman Jesse Mason, Mark Saviers said he hadn't received any feedback from prospective tenants about any issues with the Hawker Beechcraft complex. "We haven't heard anything that would be concerning for us at all," he said.
Hawker Beechcraft, the aircraft manufacturer, vacated the sprawling complex it had used for finishing and painting as part of its exit from bankruptcy last year.
Mark Saviers had assisted Southwest Airlines when it marketed its reservations center about 10 years ago, a process that eventually landed Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which used it as a call center.
Both companies have decided to give up the property. Southwest's 20-year lease expires in December. Under the lease, the airline paid the airport about $78,000 annually for the land on which the building and parking lot sit. It will revert to the airport after Dec. 31.
But the commission approved a three-month lease with Blue Cross and Blue Shield beginning Jan. 1 at $37,000 per month, the same amount the insurer was paying Southwest. The insurer needs the extra time while the new space it will be moving to is completed, according to airport documents.
Southwest broke ground on the $10 million, 43,000-square-foot building on more than 14 acres on the east side of the airport at Kellett Road and Fourche Dam Pike in September 1994. At the time, it was the airline's eighth and largest reservation center, projected to eventually employ 900 people with a $15 million annual payroll.
But the airline closed it and other reservation centers in 2004, citing an increase in airline tickets purchased online. Southwest offered job transfers to all of the 700 people employed at the Little Rock call center at the time. About 300 transferred to other call centers, while about 400 left the company, according to news reports.
When Blue Cross took over, it was forecast to employ 500 full time and 200 part time under a contract it had with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Prospective tenants for the former reservations center are likely to be either found locally or through national site consultants rather than an international company, Mark Saviers said.
Metro on 11/19/2014