February 2020 Special Meeting Minutes

Open­ing:

The Spe­cial Board Meet­ing of the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict was called to

order at 9:00 a.m., Feb­ru­ary 13, 2020 by Chair­man Lee.

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Ms. Hol­ly Melzer.

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Chair­man Lee.

The Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary called the roll and indi­cat­ed all the Board mem­bers were present except Mr. Russ

Math­is.

Mr. John­son made a motion to accept the Agen­da. Mr. Tusa sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was

tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Busi­ness Items:

a. Approve All­state Con­struc­tion, Inc. – Guar­an­teed Max­i­mum Price (GMP) Amend­ment 2 for

Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project Mod­u­lar Build­ing Construction

This item pro­vid­ed for Board con­sid­er­a­tion of an Amend­ment to the All­state Con­struc­tion, Inc. Contract

for the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project to include the Guar­an­teed Max­i­mum Price (GMP) for site and building

con­struc­tion.

At the Octo­ber 2019 Meet­ing, the Board approved a Con­struc­tion Man­ag­er at Risk (CM@R) Con­tract with

All­state Con­struc­tion, Inc. for the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project. At the Decem­ber 2019 Meet­ing, Amendment

1 to the Con­tract was approved which includ­ed a Guar­an­teed Max­i­mum Price (GMP) for the modular

build­ing of $1,661,400. Amend­ment 2 amends the GMP by a $2,120,218 increase to include the site and

build­ing con­struc­tion efforts.

This Amend­ment does not address the fixed ramps or pas­sen­ger board­ing bridges (PBB). The ramps and

load­ing bridges are under fur­ther review and an Amend­ment will be forth­com­ing for Alter­na­tives 1 and 2.

Addi­tion­al­ly, there is a revised sched­ule based on the deliv­ery date of the mod­u­lar build­ing. Staff, General

Con­sul­tant and All­state are all review­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to advance the sched­ule, know­ing it is crit­i­cal for our

sum­mer sea­son. The goal is to min­i­mal­ize oper­a­tional impacts.

Mr. McClel­lan informed the Board that this Amend­ment dif­fers from a Change Order in that it doesn’t

change the Con­tract, only the GMP. Mr. Rick Mellin, ZHA Pres­i­dent addressed the Board to explain the

Amend­ment fur­ther: Ini­tial­ly the Project was esti­mat­ed to cost in the $6M-plus range. How­ev­er, by

break­ing out the Project into three Amend­ments, they were able to have the time to find cost-saving

alter­na­tives, bring­ing the price down to $5.8M, and look­ing to bring it down even further.

Amend­ment 1 includ­ed the mod­u­lar build­ing, the item with the longest lead time to find, order and have

deliv­ered. Amend­ment 2 includes the site prepa­ra­tion (build outs, fin­ish­ings – basi­cal­ly, everything

inside). Amend­ment 3 will include – and should be the final amend­ment to the GMP – the passenger

board­ing bridges (PBB), and fixed ramps. 

21569

Mr. Mellin explained that they are review­ing the cost sav­ings between using new PBBs (est. $1M per PBB,

20-year life expectan­cy, longer deliv­ery time, FAA fund­ing) vs. refur­bished PBBs (typ­i­cal­ly est. 40% cost

sav­ings, 10-year life expectan­cy, short­er deliv­ery time, no fed­er­al fund­ing) and are hop­ing to have

pro­pos­als from three com­pa­nies for the new bridges and more infor­ma­tion on used bridges in the next

week. The cur­rent PBB was tak­en down and exam­ined and deemed to be in pret­ty decent shape only

need­ing three lev­els of fin­ish­es that they can do that would affect the life expectan­cy and the potential

war­ran­ty.

Mr. Mellin explained that the sched­ule now will bring us into the mid­dle to late June for Project

com­ple­tion, but every­one is work­ing on advanc­ing that sched­ule wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. He said we can’t get

start­ed until the mod­ules are deliv­ered. Mr. Mellin also clar­i­fied that it is All­state, the CM@R who

adver­tis­es for bids at the sub­con­trac­tor lev­el (mechanical/​electrical/​plumbing/​concrete pedestals/​internal

fin­ish­ings) and that though All­state got decent cov­er­age back, prices are high­er than they hoped, and are

what is cur­rent­ly expect­ed for the region. When Ms. Melz­er asked about items ​“not includ­ed” in the

Amend­ments, Mr. Mellin explained one was a tem­po­rary stag­ing area they were able to elim­i­nate after

find­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties here, result­ing in a $20 – 30K cost sav­ings; and cer­ti­fied build­ing erec­tors are actually

com­ing with the mod­u­lar company.

This Amend­ment will be fund­ed with­in the Project and through FAA AIP Grant Fund­ing. Staff

rec­om­mend­ed approv­ing Amend­ment 2 to the All­state Con­struc­tion, Inc. Con­tract to increase the GMP by

$2,120,218 for the site and build­ing construction.

Vice Chair­man McDon­ald made a motion to approve the All­state Con­struc­tion GMP Amend­ment 2

for Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project Con­struc­tion, and Ms. Melz­er sec­ond­ed the motion.

b. Autho­rize to Pro­ceed with Appli­ca­tion Process for Tri­umph Gulf Coast and Oth­er Funding

Sources

This Item pro­vid­ed for Board approval to move for­ward with the Tri­umph Gulf Coast, Inc. and other

fund­ing source appli­ca­tions for Project Venus, Project Sat­urn, Project Gator, and Project Good Wrench.

The Air­port work­ing with the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Alliance (EDA) and the Bay Coun­ty School District

(Haney) has devel­oped an Avi­a­tion – Cen­ter of Excel­lence with four (4) com­po­nents for the Air­port. The

Tri­umph Gulf Coast requires a pre-appli­ca­tion, and a let­ter of sup­port from the Coun­ty. The application

process for the Tri­umph Gulf Coast will include the sub­mis­sion of the for­mal appli­ca­tion as well as

meet­ing with the Tri­umph Board. Addi­tion­al­ly, Staff and the EDA will be work­ing on oth­er possible

fund­ing sources.

The Tri­umph Com­mit­tee was estab­lished by the leg­is­la­ture to over­see the expen­di­ture of funds recovered

by the Flori­da Attor­ney Gen­er­al for eco­nom­ic dam­ages caused by the BP Deep Water Hori­zon Oil Spill.

Staff and the EDA have devel­oped the con­cept of an Avi­a­tion – Cen­ter of Excel­lence which will be

designed to incor­po­rate an air­craft main­te­nance com­po­nent, refin­ish­ing com­po­nent, train­ing component

and an edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nent. The Cen­ter of Excel­lence will sup­port the growth of the aero­space and

defense sec­tors in North­west Flori­da. The use of the mul­ti-faceted approach will max­i­mize the

oppor­tu­ni­ties while max­i­miz­ing the fund­ing options.

The Air­port will sub­mit one project with four (4) com­po­nents under the Avi­a­tion – Cen­ter of Excellence,

as described below:

Project Venus is an avi­a­tion and aero­space com­pa­ny with head­quar­ters in Europe. The company

has an exten­sive net­work of avi­a­tion main­te­nance, repair, and over­haul facil­i­ties throughout 

21570

Europe and Asia. The com­pa­ny has estab­lished them­selves as a ful­ly inte­grat­ed aircraft

main­te­nance solu­tions provider. The com­pa­ny has been estab­lished for over two decades and has

over 1,200 avi­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. With a long track record of suc­cess in the Euro­pean and Asian

mar­ket, Project Venus rep­re­sen­ta­tives are look­ing to expand their oper­a­tions into North America

with a new facil­i­ty to sup­port their growth. The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly com­pletes MRO oper­a­tions on

air­craft in the com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary sectors.

Project Gator is an avi­a­tion and aero­space com­pa­ny based in the south­east Unit­ed States.

Cur­rent­ly Project Gator has facil­i­ties and oper­a­tions in two states and desires to expand to Florida

because of its prox­im­i­ty to key cus­tomers. Found­ed 10 years ago, the com­pa­ny has grown to be a

renowned leader as an avi­a­tion refin­ish­ing spe­cial­ist. The com­pa­ny has seen record growth in

sales in their busi­ness due to their reli­able and metic­u­lous approach to ser­vic­ing cus­tomers and

their busi­ness needs. Because of the company’s growth and vision, the com­pa­ny is evaluating

sit­ing a new busi­ness loca­tion in Pana­ma City, Bay Coun­ty, Flori­da. This poten­tial expan­sion will

have no impact to the company’s cur­rent oper­at­ing locations.

Project Good Wrench is a part­ner­ship between the Bay Coun­ty School Sys­tem and the Airport

Author­i­ty to enhance the edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for the expan­sion and devel­op­ment of the FAA

Approved Air­frame and Pow­er­plant (A & P) Pro­gram at Tom P. Haney Tech­ni­cal Cen­ter (Haney).

The present facil­i­ties at Haney are lim­it­ing the growth of the pro­gram that has seen recent success

with the growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try worldwide.

Project Good Wrench would be the con­struc­tion of a facil­i­ty at the ECP Air­port that would allow

the A & P pro­gram to relo­cate and expand the edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents. The present

facil­i­ties have the capa­bil­i­ty to allow 60 stu­dents per ses­sion and the new facil­i­ty would provide

class­rooms, labs, engine test and sup­port facil­i­ties for more than 120 students.

The unique loca­tion and the abil­i­ty to have the stu­dents begin their train­ing and famil­iar­i­ty of

work­ing at an MRO facil­i­ty would enhance the employ­ment and growth of the avi­a­tion sec­tor in

NW Flori­da. The facil­i­ty would be designed as an MRO allow­ing stu­dents to be famil­iar with the

work­ing envi­ron­ment and as a result increase their employ­a­bil­i­ty upon com­ple­tion of the licensing

pro­gram. This relo­ca­tion would also allow the A & P pro­gram to become a new pipeline for

employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties sup­port­ing Project Venus, Project Gator, and future MRO facilities.

This close prox­im­i­ty to exist­ing employ­ers would also pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to

com­plete intern­ships and co-op posi­tions with­in these adja­cent businesses.

Project Sat­urn is a pri­vate avi­a­tion train­ing provider inde­pen­dent for avi­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. This

Euro­pean based com­pa­ny has a glob­al net­work of clients in near­ly 100 coun­tries. The company

also pro­vides train­ing for 14 types of air­craft includ­ing Air­bus, Boe­ing, Embraer, and others.

Work­ing with Bay EDA, the Air­port Author­i­ty, and oth­er part­ners, Project Sat­urn is work­ing to

estab­lish a train­ing cen­ter with­in the MRO Cen­ter of Excel­lence. The com­pa­ny intends to start

with two full flight sim­u­la­tors (FFS) and expand to four FFSs and three fixed based simulators

(FBS) in the com­ing years. Once oper­a­tional, Project Sat­urn would hire 40 employ­ees with an

aver­age wage of at least 115% of the Bay Coun­ty aver­age. The Project Sat­urn oper­a­tion is also

pro­ject­ed to gen­er­ate approx­i­mate­ly 12,000 room nights for local hotel accom­mo­da­tions per each

FFS. The pro­ject­ed cap­i­tal invest­ment for this project is expect­ed to exceed $50M.

The Cen­ter of Excel­lence and its var­i­ous com­po­nents would uti­lize Space Flori­da as the fund­ing partner.

Space Flori­da pro­vides pre­ferred fund­ing mech­a­nisms as well as sig­nif­i­cant tax sav­ings. Staff and the EDA

will uti­lize the Uni­ver­si­ty of West Flori­da – Hass Cen­ter to assist in the devel­op­ment of the various

fund­ing source appli­ca­tions. Staff rec­om­mends autho­riza­tion to pro­ceed with the devel­op­ment and

sub­mis­sion of for­mal appli­ca­tions for the Avi­a­tion – Cen­ter of Excel­lence with the four diversified 

21571

part­ners for the four (4) com­po­nents iden­ti­fied as Project Venus, Project Sat­urn, Project Gator and Project

Good Wrench with Tri­umph Gulf Coast as well as pos­si­ble oth­er fund­ing part­ners. In addi­tion, Staff

rec­om­mends autho­riza­tion for the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor to re-engage the Uni­ver­si­ty of West Flori­da – Hass

Cen­ter to assist Staff in the devel­op­ment of the appli­ca­tion in an amount not to exceed $20,000, with

fund­ing avail­able in the FY 20 Budget. 

Mr. McClel­lan informed the Board that the esti­mat­ed max­i­mum Air­port out-of-pock­et cost being proposed

for the four com­po­nents would be $4M, the over­all esti­mat­ed project cost would be over $100M and

owned by Space Flori­da, and the only risk we would have would be not col­lect­ing rent from Space Florida

if it ​“went away” and we would ben­e­fit by hav­ing con­crete already in place, and hav­ing structures

avail­able to rent.

Mr. John­son made a motion to autho­rize to pro­ceed with the appli­ca­tion process for Tri­umph Gulf

Coast and oth­er fund­ing sources, and Mr. Nel­son sec­ond­ed the motion.

Adjourn­ment:

The meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 9:27 a.m.

________________________________ ________________________________

Kathy Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Del Lee, Chairman