YOUNGSTOWN - The board that runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport is moving ahead with buying an air cargo building on airport property and finding a business to operate out of the facility.
The Western Reserve Port Authority agreed Wednesday to the $1.075 million asking price to buy the former Davis Cargo Building, ''contingent on if we get the proper funding, which we think we can get,'' said Scott Lynn, port authority board chairman.
The board also agreed to ''move forward,'' according to their agenda, on a 25-year lease with AFCO (Aviation Facilities Co.), which on its website lists among its services ''the development, design, financing, leasing and marketing'' of terminals, cargo and other facilities.
The lease with AFCO, of Dulles, Va., is contingent on the purchase of the building.
Lynn said the board will use $268,000 from a $3.5 million bond offering toward the building purchase, and the remainder from tenant rent payments.
''Whatever rent they would pay after year one would pay for the note,'' Lynn said.
Plans earlier had the port authority using an $806,250 grant through Ohio's JobsReady economic development program to pay for the balance after using some of the bond, but its application was rejected.
The building is owned by pallet and stretch wrap company Millwood Inc., which bought it in 2009 in a transaction that has brought ethics scrutiny.
Port authority member Scott Lewis brokered the sale at a time when the board leased airport property that made the sale possible. Lewis didn't vote on the lease.
Lynn said the proposed acquisition of the building and the ethics probe are separate issues. He said the FAA has asked the board to make efforts to get the building back for aviation purposes.
Lewis abstained on Wednesday's votes on the cargo building.