Moammar Gadhafi.
A West Bloomfield Township-based company has lost its contract to do inside landscape maintenance at Detroit Metropolitan Airport's North Terminal to a British multinational company that has ties to the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Crain's Detroit Business reports.
Amy Haimerl of Crain's writes that the local company, Planterra Corp., was outbid by British-based company, Rentokl lnitial PLC, by $40,000. Planterra had the contract for six years and will lose it on May 1.
Crain's writes:
Michael Conway, director of public affairs for the Wayne County Airport Authority, said the authority's legal team looked at Rentokil and the U.S. division actually bidding on the airport work.
"Neither of them is on the U.S. State Department's statutorily or administratively debarred companies. So the management team really had no reason not to recommend them considering that they were the lowest responsive and responsible bidder."
The loss of that contract, effective May 1, was a slap to Shane Pliska, whose father, Larry, started Planterra in the 1970s and has grown it from a small retail shop into a landscape and events business with $5 million a year in revenue. It has such high-end clients as Somerset Collection in Troy and the Mansion at MGM Grand, an exclusive suite hotel in Las Vegas. The company creates living green walls and elaborate interior gardens as well as throws lavish parties in Planterra's 11,000-square-foot greenhouse.
Crain's reports that lanterra will continue to service the airport's larger McNamara Terminal through a direct contract with Delta Airlines Inc.
