Stewart International Airport, long teetering on the edge of becoming a major economic force in the Hudson Valley, is now at its tipping point.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is set to take over operation of the New Windsor airport sometime in the fall after closing on the financial transaction, which involves paying $78.5 million for the remaining 93 years of the 99-year lease currently held by British-based National Express Corp.
John D”™Ambrosio, president of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, has championed the airport for 20-odd years, spearheading efforts to attract carriers to the airport from American Airlines to the two latest arrivals, AirTran and JetBlue. The creation of a new terminal and a connector road off Drury Lane has made the airport more attractive to carriers. The road is expected to be open in the fall. He”™s confident the Port Authority will develop the airport with everyone from the community to businesses in mind. D”™Ambrosio, who grew up in Schenectady, said he hopes Stewart will become similar to Albany County Airport, which he characterizes as a “great regional airport.”
As for Stewart”™s future, the Port Authority is not yet showing its hand, saying it does not have any definitive plans as yet drawn up. Slow and steady will be the working plan, said Port Authority spokesman Marc LaVorgna. “You don”™t have a feel for an airport until you own it.”
A strategic asset
With so many starts and stops over the years and little physical change ”“ a hotel is currently going up on airport property ”“ the lack of development can prove to be an asset in the future, said John Kasarda, an expert on aviation infrastructure, logistics, urban development and a primary developer of the aerotropolis or airport city concept.
“I think people in the Port Authority will be the first to say they don”™t have the history of development at and around the airport (which would make it) more difficult to change to 21st-century models than one that is relatively undeveloped,” said Kasarda, a professor and director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina. “It”™s not a complete blank canvas, but it”™s enough of an open canvas that they can paint a pretty good picture on it.”
An aerotropolis is basically an airport that contains a terminal, a hotel, a conference center, retail shops, business offices, express couriers and an air cargo terminal with a road ringing the complex. Feeding into and out of the complex are spokes of roads and commuter rail. The roads, which Kasarda has dubbed aerolanes, help with the development of aeronautical and nonaeronautical services such as research, technology, industrial and logistics parks, warehouses, along with other ancillary services and commercial space.
The concept has been successful around the world from European countries to Asia and now to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Kasarda said. Dubai is following Kasarda”™s schematics in building Dubai World Central, “which is going to be the size of Boston” and have the largest cargo and passenger capacity in the world. “They”™re going to have a logistics city and an enterprise city, recreation city, financial and education city in clusters. They”™re going to have multiple cities they”™re building based on the airport. This is going to be their primary asset merging into the 21st century, which is globally connected and speed driven.”
He said there is no criticism or anti-development sentiment there as well as the rest of the world because the airports are viewed as strategic assets for economic development, trade and investment as well as raising the overall quality of life.
“In the U.S. we tend to view our airports more as necessities, but nuisances.”
Gateway for the region
With community-based critics already gearing up for a fight at Stewart over noise, Kasarda said, “You want to make sure the aerotropolis development benefits the communities around it, aesthetically as well as environmentally.”
Compromises are always part of the plan. “There”™s no doubt if an air express company comes in they need to make night flights to move goods efficiently. The issues raised are real; you need to work with the community and educate them and have them understand that development of the airport is in the long-term interest of the region in which they”™re in,” he said.
What is required is not just airport planning, but an integration of airport planning, urban planning and business strategy. “They all have to come together if the development is going to be economically efficient, aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sustainable.” He stressed that development should be in clusters and not strips.
“You use the airport as your gateway, as the image maker for the region. The first thing that out-of-state visitors see when they come in and the last thing that they see ”¦ so people leave with an image of the area that is highly positive.”
With 2,400 acres, Stewart has an advantage over the other major metropolitan airports in that they are hemmed in by water and existing development.
“The development around Kennedy and LaGuardia and certainly Newark occurred before airports began performing their new roles as primary supply chain connectors within the national and global economy as well as being important in enterprise connections,” Kasarda said. “Speed, agility and long-distance connectivity were just not as important 20 or 30 years ago. If the airports developed in today”™s business and logistics environment they would have different businesses around them and different forms of residential development.”
An airport such as Westchester County Airport, which is hemmed in by residential development and a reservoir, serves a role for ferrying executives, but it will not have the type of commercial-driven activities that airports will be performing in the 21st century, he said.?
Success of an aerotropolis
Looking at Kasarda”™s basic airport city model, Stewart has a long way to go to meet the goals of development in and around the airport. “Connectivity on the ground is what supports its connectivity in the air” he said. “This is why commuter rail and good highway access are critical to the success of an aerotropolis.”
Also key are roads that ring the airport because they provide accessibility to multiple points. Hong Kong Airport doesn”™t have a ring road because it”™s on an island, he said. But those that are landlocked tend to do best with a ring road.
Wide access roads into the airport are just as important because “the key is not the distance from the airport in aerotropolis development but the time and cost of moving people and goods back and forth from the airport to the businesses or residential areas.”
He said the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and the Interstate 35 corridor is a good example of an aerotropolis. He said Detroit and Memphis are also good examples of cities that want to or are currently transforming their images via their respective airports.
In addition to good access to the airport, Kasarda is an advocate of putting hotels close to the terminal, even inside the terminal such as the Hyatt at Orlando International or the Westin at the Detroit airport.
The primary cash cow of airports is parking, which is “the primary source of non-aeronautical revenue followed by airport retail and then land development.”
Parking, along with landing fees, gate leases and passenger service charges all combine to keep the cost of operations down and to remain competitive.
“The aerotropolis is really a planning model that can enable communities as well as the airport to reenforce each other in a positive manner,” said Kasarda, who has been traveling as a consultant around the world for the past 20 years.
While the aerotropolis model has begun to be considered more now in the United States, it has gained more favor in Europe, Asia and the Middle East in part because airports there are quasi private-sector enterprises with the government as the ultimate holding company.
Many airports in Asia are built on greenfield sites where planners can lay out an entire urban complex around the airport and Kasarda points out they don”™t have the same environmental reviews that are in the United States.
“In Europe they”™re better planners in that they understand the role of transportation and transportation nodes in economic development. Not without resistance in some areas, but they move forward with more concrete designs of airport cities than here in the United States where it”™s much more of a political process. We haven”™t had the vision and the coordinated action to develop these complexes the way they had in Europe, Asia and now the Middle East.”
Due to the population shift from New York City into the Hudson Valley, Stewart “has real expansion prospects and growth prospects.”
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