After a decade of legal wrangling, the Atlanta airport advertising contract is moving forward with little conflict or commotion.
That’s not to say everyone was happy about the contracting process. But after the city pre-qualified four companies for the bidding process, only one bid came in — from incumbent Clear Channel Outdoor.
On Monday, the Atlanta City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution to award the 10-year contract to Clear Channel, with no comments or discussion.
Clear Channel, which was the target of lawsuits over the contract, had bid $12.6 million as the first-year minimum annual guarantee to the airport.
Corey Airport Services sued Clear Channel and the city over the contract 12 years ago and was one of the pre-qualified bidders. But in a letter last fall to the city’s procurement department, Corey president Diane McIver wrote that her firm would not submit a bid because it felt the required minimum $10 million bid was unrealistic, the transition was unrealistic for a new contractor, and requests for changes to address other issues were also denied.
“We wish it had been a different process and that the comments and concerns of the other qualified bidders had been considered,” said Corey’s attorney Ken Rickert on Monday. “At this point we don’t plan to pursue it any further.”
The other two pre-qualified bidders also wrote letters to the city, with Titan calling the requirements “off market” and JCDecaux writing that the minimum bid was “unrealistically high” and that the terms were “such that it would not be possible for us to create an advertising program in line with international standards, nor to make it a reasonably profitable enterprise.”
Corey’s lawsuit in 2003 claimed the city of Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson International broke the law by steering the contract to a competitor with political connections, Clear Channel. Clear Channel’s minority partner, Barbara Fouch, was a longtime friend of the late former Mayor Maynard Jackson.
Corey settled with the city in 2011. A federal appeals court in June 2012 tossed out a jury verdict in Corey’s favor, vacating the portion of the damages that were to be paid by Clear Channel and Fouch, who died in July 2012. The Atlanta airport advertising contract was not rebid until 2014.
