McKinney Seeks $73M for Budget Commercial Airport "Proof of Concept"

 At its January meeting, the McKinney Community Development Corporation (MCDC) heard from organizations and groups wanting grants. The long-controversial city airport came asking for $30M in financing. Grant requests will awarded at the February meeting. Earlier in January, the city asked the McKinney Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) for $22.4M.

                          City Presentation 

The city cannot use property tax money for three years after two failed commercial airport bonds (one in 2015 for the land and another one in 2023 for a terminal). While the city waits out the clock, its only recourse seems to be the MCDC and MEDC.

The city of McKinney asked the MCDC for a $30M bridge loan, either from the fund balance or by taking out sales tax bonds, until a federal Rural TIFIA loan can be secured. This would require at least two years of yearly $1M interest only payments. The city is prepared to have the MCDC carry the entire loan if the TIFIA loan does not work out.

The combined $52M ask is for a budget, “proof of concept” commercial airport they will use to woo a budget airline. There is still no firm commitment from an airliner. Here is the specific wording from the grant application:

“The proposed infrastructure will enable development of various aviation uses on the east side of the airport. The plan is to maximize flexibility to allow for growth in the future as the market and economy dictate. The proposed terminal is a small phase one terminal that is expandable but is intended as an inexpensive terminal to prove that commercial service is viable at TKI. If commercial service is successful, future expansion would include the construction of an entirely new terminal north of the first phase. The first phase terminal would continue to offer gates for the terminal or could be repurposed as a maintenance facility and/or rental car facility.” 

Both the MEDC and MCDC collect a half-cent each of sales tax revenue. That allotment translates into roughly $25M a year. The MCDC alone has saved over $47M in a fund balance for future unnamed projects—like the airport.

The MCDC left the public hearing open for the $30M commercial grant.
Please email the MCDC board at Info@mckinneycdc.org on agenda item # 25-2377.

There will also be a joint City Council, MEDC, and MCDC meeting on 2/18/25 at 4pm. The airport will likely be discussed.

For more background on the changing role of the MCDC, please see the following past articles:

McKinney’s Community Development Corporation Changes Focus

McKinney Leadership’s Heard Problem

The $200M Airport Bond

190 Acre Airport Land Purchase

Demystifying McKinney's Airport

Adding Context to the 1st Non-Official Filmed Airport Bond Q&A

George Fuller, acting as a citizen, hosted a McKinney Area Democratic Club Q&A at his business in support of the incumbent MISD school board members up for re-election and the $200M airport bond. The video is here.

I’m adding context to several things he said.

1.  (starting about 3:25) GF asserted that if the McKinney ISD school board members on the ballot are not re-elected, “…watch our school district go down in the tank and watch every company run for the hills.”

I’m sure he feels passionate about reelecting these incumbents, but MISD already has a lower rating than the surrounding districts (B instead of A). The district has also been slowly losing students since 2018, while surrounding ISDs continue enrolling more students. Maybe companies have been running for a while. Maybe their employees are choosing to be in other districts already.

Enrollments at MISD over the years

 Find this here, pg. 120

2.  (about 7:00) GF says, “It [the airport] kicks off about $3.5M in taxes, property, school, college, and county. Does everyone know why it’s important to everyone in the room? That means if they’re paying $3.5M worth of taxes, we’re not.”

How? How are taxpayers getting that back? The city and MISD collected more in taxes this last year than the previous year (even though the tax rate was lower due to property valuations being higher). Additionally, the money brought in through the airport reinvestment zone (TIRZ) is not even part of this calculation for the city. How does that fit in? 

City of McKinney

MISD

3.  (at about 14:00) GF says, “The FAA has reviewed and put out a first draft that they [garbled]…first open house, the second on April 19^th, but they look at what’s the impact on water, wildlife, air quality, ground transportation…”

This statement is not correct. It is also misleading. The FAA is not performing this environmental assessment. McKinney Airport’s engineering firm of record, Garver, is performing the study that is still ongoing. According to the timeline given by Garver and all city information, the FAA has not gotten the preliminary report yet.

These two open houses GF talked about are hosted by Garver and the city. They are only open houses. Public hearings are required for public input, and those will not be completed until AFTER the bond election. The FAA is supposed to review the findings after the bond election too.

Here’s the city's explanation of the process:

Click here to see it on the city website.