Action on restaurant lease at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport delayed until at least June

The Westmoreland County Airport Authority is delaying any decision on the future of the restaurant space at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport until its next meeting, rescheduled for June 15.

In April, the county commissioners urged the board to entertain competitive bids to operate the airport’s upper-level dining area, currently leased by DeNunzio’s Italian Chophouse.

At Tuesday’s monthly authority session, Solicitor Dan Hewitt read emails submitted by commissioners Doug Chew and Gina Cerilli Thrasher, who asked the airport panel for a closed-door meeting with the commissioners to discuss the restaurant lease before the authority votes on it.

Thrasher, who expressed concern about a possible “rushed vote,” pointed out that the DeNunzio’s lease doesn’t expire until March.

She said five restaurants have contacted the commissioners and indicated they want to submit proposals for leasing the airport eatery. She wrote that she and Chew “have been brainstorming additional ways to maximize revenues on top of putting the lease out for proposal.”

Thrasher later declined to name the interested restaurants. “That is up to them to come forward,” she said.

Citing “rhetoric that resulted from the April meeting,” Chew asked that the commissioners be allowed another month “to fully explore the situation with the airport authority.

“That is the best way for each group to understand the other most fully. Any decision-making process is only strengthened and validated by open communications and weakened without them.”

In April, authority Chairman Paul Puleo asked the panel’s property committee to develop a request for proposals to lease the restaurant.

On Tuesday, after an executive session of more than a half hour on property matters, Hewitt said the authority had reached a consensus to withhold action on the lease.

In June, the authority may consider action on an existing restaurant lease, a revised lease or a request for proposals, he said.

He said he would provide authority members “the latest version of the lease that has been considered by the property committee that is in draft form only. There is not a final written version at this time because the board has not acted upon it.”

DeNunzio’s has leased the restaurant at the Unity airport since 2004. It pays monthly rates of about $2,000 each for rent and utilities. It is charged an additional $500 per quarter for use of a banquet room.

Owner Ron DeNunzio told the Tribune-Review he made nearly $1 million worth of improvements to the restaurant when he moved in, on top of purchasing the lease from the previous operator.

He said he signed a proposed new lease that would double his fees for rent and utilities. He was expecting the authority to act on it in April, when “politics got involved.”

DeNunzio, who operates sister restaurants in Jeannette and Monroeville, located at the Arnold Palmer terminal before the 2011 arrival of the airport’s sole commercial carrier, Spirit Airlines. Spirit offers flights to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and destinations in Florida, serving more than 25,700 passengers in April while recovering from the year-long decline in air travel triggered by the covid-19 pandemic.

DeNunzio has argued that his restaurant played an important part in the airport’s growth.

Fans of the restaurant took to social media in April voicing support for DeNunzio’s continued presence at the airport.