Yep. Staggering and would usher in huge changes.....might be a good time to buy some property back there? But not nearby, unless you really love airport noise a lot......count me out.....
I wonder if I shouldn't start a separate thread for NePa business--"changing times". In addition to this air cargo project, there's the "Wall St' West" deal being looked at. Moreover, this week it was announced that Sanofi-Pasteur, headquartered in Swiftwater, Monroe County is fixin' to buy Brsitol-Myers- Squibb...no small deal in itself....
All this adds up to a new and unusual business cycle/ profile for NePA; it also hearalds the increasing tie-in to metro NYC, for better or worse. Granted, the Wall St. West concept as well as the Cargo port at Hazle Twnship have the added rationale of being created in the interest of homeland security-backup-facilities. Be that as it may--or might not-----it's the rationale-de-jour- for a buncha guys to make a financial killing by striking while the iron is hot....and NePa seems to be in the furnace.....
The cargo port is expected to be a $17 Billion (gasp--that's nearly more than EX-Ithacan's net worth) engine according to today's published report; construction might begin this summer, completion in 2010, the Luzerne County commissioners are proceeding to establish an authoority to run the thing, since it will be county-owned, and FAA approvals are the first hurdles to be attacked & overcome.....
FROM TODAY'S NEWS:
02/01/2007
Airport would bring new jobs, identity
BY MICHAEL P. BUFFER
STAFF WRITER
HAZLE TWP. — A cargo-only airport near Hazleton would introduce the international economy to Northeastern Pennsylvania and infuse $17 billion to the regional economy, project backers said Wednesday.
“This initiative with one swing of the bat — one swing of the bat — wipes out the 30, 40, 50 years we have struggled to reidentify ourselves due to the loss of the coal mining industry,” Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak said at First Quality Nonwovens in the Humboldt Industrial Park during an announcement of the $1.6 billion project.
The project would be a partnership between the state, the county and Gladstone Partners, which has an agreement to buy 4,300 acres of former mining land in Hazle Township and parts of Schuylkill County for the airport development project. After securing all federal, state and local approvals, the airport should be built in 18 to 30 months, officials said.
The “first key hurdle” is getting airspace approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, said state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Hazle Township. After getting airspace approval, Gladstone Partners and a new county airport authority would not seek federal money for the project to avoid what could be a drawn-out federal approval process, Eachus said.
Construction is expected to begin in this summer and conclude in 2010. New federal legislation requiring the inspection of all air cargo in three years is expected to generate private investment in the project, officials said.
A mixture of state, local and private money is expected to fund the $1.6 billion project. The airport facility and a 13,000-foot runway would cost about $500 million.
Eachus said a cargo airport in Fort Worth, Texas, was funded with private money “outside the FAA-approval process.” That airport opened in 1989 and is touted as the first purely industrial airport in the United States.
Gladstone Partners claims the project would create 4,533 airport-related jobs, including jobs for airlines, cargo handlers, security companies and warehouses.
“No minimum wage jobs,” Skrepenak said. “They are going to be high technical jobs, aviation jobs.”
The project is also expected to indirectly create 161,000 jobs, and a $17 billion impact is forecast over an unspecified period.
A cargo airport near Hazleton would bring in 1.4 million tons of freight in 2012, and gross revenue from fuel and rental fees would exceed $38 million a year, according to a 2004 study by the LPA Group of Columbia, S.C. That study was funded with a $300,000 federal grant and $30,000 match from Luzerne County.
Gladstone Partners funded another study conducted by Leigh Fisher Associates and released in August. According to that study, the project is feasible because many airports in the northeastern United States “are severely congested and increasingly expensive for the air cargo industry.”
A cargo airport near Hazleton would provide an alternative to congested airports in New York, Newark and Philadelphia and easy access to freight rail lines and interstate highways — Interstate 80, Interstate 81 and the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It would also provide more efficient operations, increased security potential and expansion capacity, according to the 2006 study.
Cargo airlines have increased orders for wide-body aircraft that could easily land at the proposed airport, Eachus said.
“Hazleton is one stop to virtually anywhere in the world with these jets,” Eachus said in a news release. “When we are offering a quality, cost-effective alternative to fueling and servicing of these aircraft, we’ll also become home to distribution centers, repair facilities for electronics and even manufacturing plants for new goods that companies can then ship affordably from Hazleton.”
Eachus said the airport could be as successful as cargo airports in Memphis, Tenn., and Anchorage, Alaska.
“With this team we’ve assembled and our already proven role as a transportation hub, I think Hazleton can be the ‘New Memphis’ and take the strain off already overtaxed commercial airports like Newark and New York’s JFK to become an air cargo leader,” Eachus said.
mbuffer@citizensvoice.com
©The Citizens Voice 2007
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