The Maryland Aviation Administration has recommended that a new, politically-connected company be awarded a lucrative, 20-year contract to run the concessions operations at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The agency sent out short letters to the other bidders for the contract last Wednesday, the day after Election Day, informing them that their companies’ names would not be forwarded to high-ranking state officials and the Board of Public Works for final approval. The state, according to the letters, “has recommended New Market Development Joint Venture, LLC as the most advantageous to MDOT MAA subject to the approval of the Executive Director, the Secretary of Transportation for the State of Maryland and the BPW.”
As Maryland Matters reported last month, New Market Development Joint Venture LLC is owned and operated by Major Riddick, a former chief of staff to former Gov. Parris Glendening (D), who formed the company in 2021 specifically to win the contract to operate the concessions — food, drink, retail and other hospitality services — at the busy state-owned airport. Riddick has owned a separate company for two decades, Great Foods LLC, that has fast food contracts at BWI Marshall and at Pittsburgh International Airport, but he has never managed a full concessions contract at any airport.
But the state’s decision to recommend that the contract go to a new company isn’t likely to sit well with the established airport industry vendors that also put in bids — considering how the procurement process played out. Specifically, the state’s Request for Proposal to find a new operator of the airport’s concessions was changed twice after it was issued in ways that put New Market Development at an advantage.
Yet that isn’t the only controversy over the bidding process.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Josh Kurtz over at Maryland Matters
