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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Marion IDs buyer for airport runway, averting closure
The runway will be sold for $500,000 — more than $1M less than the price the city paid to purchase the land.
May. 8, 2025 6:46 pm, Updated: May. 9, 2025 2:53 pm
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MARION — The sale of the Marion Airport runway has been cleared for takeoff, albeit for less than a third of what the city originally paid for the property 10 years ago.
Marion City Council members on Thursday approved the sale of the runway to 530 Investments LLC for $500,000. Per the terms of the sale, the company will maintain the land as a runway for at least 10 years in return for a rebate on a portion of its city property taxes up to a maximum of $50,000.
“The desired goal was to save this runway and (therefore) save the airport,” said Marion City Manager Ryan Waller. “This lets us do what we had hoped to do.”
Waller declined to identify the individuals behind the LLC, but the Iowa Secretary of State’s website lists Peg Morris as the company’s registered agent, and an address in Springville. Morris was not at Thursday’s meeting, and she did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The city bought the runway and a fixed base operations building in 2015 for $1.67 million and invested an additional $1.8 million into a 2020 runway extension. The rest of the airport property is owned by LuxAir, a private company formed in 2015.
The city began to discuss a potential runway sale a few years ago and held a series of public meetings on the matter prior to issuing a preliminary request for proposals this February. That request mandated an $857,500 minimum sale price with bids due March 3.
No bids were received by the deadline, so council members voted to close the runway by June 30 in a move that effectively would have halted all flights to and from the airport.
The council reversed course shortly thereafter, however, and voted March 20 to reissue the request for proposals at a lower asking price in hopes of reviewing a late bid that had come in after the March 3 deadline and under the original asking price.
Waller confirmed Thursday that the late bid came from 530 Investments LLC, which formally resubmitted its offer after the second request for bids went out. The offer was the only one submitted to the city’s request.
Officials: Private ownership offers ‘better opportunity’ for future success
Council members on Thursday approved the sale 6-0 after a brief public hearing. The sale is tentatively set to be finalized by June 25, barring any logistical or regulatory delays.
Ward 2 Council Member Grant Harper noted that the sale is the culmination of a long-running series of conversations that involved both public and private entities related to the airport.
“The primary objective of ... this is the fact that we want to maintain the airport in its operational condition,” Harper said. “By returning it essentially to private ownership, the airport maintains” that status.
In speaking to The Gazette, Waller acknowledged that the city is selling the runway for more than $1 million less than it paid to acquire the runway 10 years ago, but said the decision was made to accept a lower asking price to ensure the runway can continue to bring economic benefit to the broader Marion area.
Per an Iowa Department of Transportation Aviation Economic Impact Report, the Marion Airport contributes roughly $2.9 million in annual economic activity through a mix of direct and indirect spending.
The sale also negates the need for city investments for future maintenance and improvements, Waller noted, allowing those funds to instead be allocated to other city needs or capital projects.
“Looking at the cost and other priorities, (the runway) wasn’t something the city was able to continue to support with the needed investments,” he said. “Under private ownership, it has a better opportunity to thrive and benefit the community.”
Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com
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