Rotor & Wing: Rotorcraft Report: MD Searches For Possible Home Away From Mesa

PRODUCTS | AIRFRAMES

MD Helicopters owner Lynn Tilton may move the manufacturer from Mesa, Ariz. if that city doesn’t relent in demands for higher rent.

Tilton, whose New York investment firm Patriarch Partners bought control of MD in mid-2005, told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram she’d hired the real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield to find other possible homes for the manufacturer. She said one possibility would be moving to Grand Prairie, Texas. She is looking for communities that would offer MD major incentives to set up shop within their boundaries.

Patriarch last year bought the completions house Heritage Aviation, which is based in Grand Prairie, but Tilton has decided to close that operation.

MD is based at Mesa’s Falcon Field, and company officials have complained that the city had wanted to increase its rent their 400 percent.