Discussion ongoing to bring auto hangars to RAC | Local News

For months, commissioners and Roswell Air Center (RAC) staff have been considering adding long-term parking structures. Those expected to use these facilities include people who fly into the airport for short-term work assignments and those who have second homes here.

The airport would lease the ground space on which this type of structure would sit. The business leasing the space could place the parking structure, and then charge rent to people who use it to store their vehicles.

On Tuesday, Bill Prather of Airport Garage Company spoke to the commissioners through an online connection. The company has its hangars at such locations as the Denver International and Great Falls International airports.

He is the second person to discuss the prospect of placing this type of parking at the airport at a commission meeting.

“Yours is the better product,” said Commission Chair Bud Kunkel. It would sit on concrete while the other structure presented earlier wouldn’t have that more solid foundation beneath, for example.

Kunkel also asked Prather what it would take for the auto hangars to be placed at RAC and allow the company to turn a profit.

Prather replied that he plans to start slow, but he is considering the eventual addition of two such structures at RAC: One would be near the main terminal and the other would be close to AvFlight, the airport’s fixed base operator.

He would start with a small number of spaces before deciding whether to place more later.

Prather expects the average monthly rent to keep a vehicle in one of the auto hangars at RAC to be $160 to $170 a month, with one-year lease agreements.

Commissioner Jon…