St. Louis Airport Privatization Documents

State and Local Government |
By Patrick Tuohey | Read Time 2 minutes minutes

Last year, the City of St. Louis applied to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to relinquish St. Louis Lambert Airport to a public–private partnership. The request for proposal sought to:

receive bona fide proposals from firms, partnerships, consortiums, etc., with the technical expertise and financial resources to enter into a public–private partnership for the long-term lease, management, operation, and development of the Airport. The Airport Lease RFP shall be in a format acceptable to the FAA and shall be appropriate for submission as part of the City’s final application document.

The Show-Me Institute filed an open records request for the request-for-proposal document (available here), the proposals the city received, and the resulting contract with the winning bid. Those 11 bids are listed below, with links to the full text of each. Note that in two cases the document we received was divided into two parts, perhaps to make electronic transmission easier. Note also that some bids contain redactions, perhaps to protect sensitive information.

The selection committee for the city chose the Moelis & Grow Missouri proposal. The resulting contract with the city is here. We note that Rex Sinquefield, the president of the Show-Me Institute, is associated with Grow Missouri.

Show-Me Institute researchers have not had the opportunity to go through the proposals, but the information is presented above for public review.

About the Author

Patrick Tuohey is a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute and co-founder and policy director of the Better Cities Project. Both organizations aim to deliver the best in public policy research from around the country to local leaders, communities and voters. He works to foster understanding of the consequences — often unintended — of policies regarding economic development, taxation, education, policing, and transportation. In 2021, Patrick served as a fellow of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Yorktown Foundation for Public Policy in Virginia and also a regular opinion columnist for The Kansas City Star. Previously, Patrick served as the director of municipal policy at the Show-Me Institute. Patrick’s essays have been published widely in print and online including in newspapers around the country, The Hill, and Reason Magazine. His essays on economic development, education, and policing have been published in the three most recent editions of the Greater Kansas City Urban League’s “State of Black Kansas City.” Patrick’s work on the intersection of those topics spurred parents and activists to oppose economic development incentive projects where they are not needed and was a contributing factor in the KCPT documentary, “Our Divided City” about crime, urban blight, and public policy in Kansas City. Patrick received a bachelor’s degree from Boston College in 1993.

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