For some leaders, massive airport-centered hotel and office developments are the wave of the future; for Miami International Airport Director Emilio Gonzalez, they’re a thing of the past — at least for now.
“I killed our Airport City,” Mr. Gonzalez told Global Atlanta after a panel of airport leaders at the SMART Airports and Regions conference addressed the “aerotropolis” trend, among other industry developments.
Originally envisioned in 2007 as a 33.5-acre, $512 million project with hotels, offices and a pet spa, Miami’s Airport City was eventually rejected at Mr. Gonzalez’s recommendation.
It was a project that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport General Manager Miguel Southwell had negotiated while working as commercial director at MIA. Mr. Southwell is now pursuing a similar project in Atlanta that has received interest from at least four developers.
Mr. Gonzalez denied that the Miami project stalled because of political posturing by Florida lawmakers angered over developer Odebrecht USA‘s ties with Cuba.
The project reportedly hit roadblocks when from Miami’s anti-Cuba commissioners learned that another subsidiary of Brazil-based Odebrecht had renovated Cuba’s Mariel sugar cane port. Florida then passed a law barring contracts of more than $1 million with companies that have business in Cuba or Syria, a move seen by some as targeting Odebrecht. The company sued, and it was later struck down as unconstitutional in federal court.
Mr. Gonzalez insisted that his decision to shelve the project had nothing to do with that dispute.
“I didn’t have a dog in that fight. They just gave me this book and said, ‘What do you think?’ I go, ‘Man, this is awful.’”
When Mr. Gonzalez, a former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, came to MIA two years ago, the Airport City project had already been stalled for years. By that point, he says, the prevailing winds had changed, both for the economy and the airport itself.
“We needed the space for growth, but even the financials weren’t all that attractive. They were attractive early on when the economy was bad, but they weren’t attractive when I got there, so it was an operational decision and a financial decision — very simple,” he said. More on financing here.
The airport was seeing higher passenger and cargo demand and needed the space for 13 “hardstands” — off-gate parking for arriving planes that allows the airport to host at least one more international flight per day at each gate. Airlines pay to rent those spaces, providing another revenue stream for the airport, Mr. Gonzalez said.
He added that some of the space will also be used for a new taxi lot, partly addressing complaints from passengers dissatisfied with aging and ill-equipped cabs at the airport. A hotel project financed by the airport — not developers — could still be built later on the remaining land, he added in an interview with Global Atlanta.
Mr. Southwell told Global Atlanta in a later interview that he’s not discouraged by Miami’s decision to drop its Airport City plans.
For Atlanta it’s about fulfilling the airport’s overall purpose: spurring economic development for the region. That’s the same driving force behind the Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance, a public-private initiative which is currently hashing out a blueprint for the development of communities around the airport.
“This exactly fits into what we’re trying to do, but more importantly, you’re doing it in an area where you feel a deep sense of obligation to provide greater numbers of jobs,” Mr. Southwell said.
He noted that the alliance has worked wonders in getting formerly combative communities near the airport to work together to envision a shared future. The collegial atmosphere is strikingly different from his first tour in Atlanta in the 1990s, he said, when tensions rose over noise (a perennial complaint from surrounding communities) and expansion projects like the fifth runway.
“I’ve been in some of these meetings, and to see multiple mayors and their operating managers talk about collaboration and cooperating instead of being competitors, it’s something that is just not only extremely productive, but I would say, it’s nothing short of a miracle,” he said.
Philadelphia International Airport is just emerging from some of those growing pains, CEO Mark Gale said on the SMART airports panel. The airport is operated by the city, but two-thirds of its land sits in a separate township, a recipe that boiled over the last few years. Four lawsuits were settled this month to pave the way for the airport’s expansion of 27 acres.
The lesson? Collaboration with stakeholders in surrounding communities is imperative to any aerotropolis plan, especially for airports like PHL that are “landlocked.”
“If that’s not there, it often leads to, ‘If I’m not going to get a peace of the pie, I’m going to stand in the way of things happening,’” Mr. Gale said.
For Mr. Southwell, Airport City is just the first project in line. He said the airport will begin looking for strategic ways to use the properties it owns more productively.
One example is what the airport calls Green Acres ATL Energy Park, which sits just south of the fifth runway in Clayton County. The proposed composting and recycling facility would move the airport toward its goal of recycling 90 percent of its waste by 2020.
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