Airport officials cut back hotel plan
By Tony Bizjak - tbizjak@sacbee.com
Last Updated 6:02 am PST Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
With the calendar speeding toward groundbreaking, Sacramento International Airport officials have reluctantly sliced off part of a major upcoming expansion – a last-minute effort to keep the project from faltering.
The west flank of a planned high-rise airport hotel now will be three stories shorter. Otherwise, it would have blocked air traffic tower controllers' view of a portion of the west runway.
A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said Monday his agency is waiting to see the airport's amended plan, but is pleased local officials are redesigning the hotel to meet safety concerns.
"We explained the importance of not blocking any airfield views," FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.
Sacramento airport officials, however, say they are upset with the way the issue played out.
The episode also added to time pressures on airport officials: Should the project fall too far behind schedule, it could be stalled indefinitely by the looming possibility of a flood-related construction moratorium in Natomas.
Local officials spent nearly four years trying to persuade the FAA to move its tower to make room for the airport's planned new terminal and hotel tower, a review of airport e-mails, memos and letters indicates.
At one point, local officials unsuccessfully offered to pay the $25 million price tag to build a tower in a new location on airport grounds if the FAA would reimburse them.
"It only confirms the inflexibility of the federal government," Sacramento airports director Hardy Acree said.
The tower problem is among several loose ends airport officials are racing to tie up in hopes of making their planned midsummer construction start date.
It has become a nail-biter. FAA officials, in an e-mail to the Bee on Monday, countered that they receive numerous tower replacement requests nationally, but have limited funds for the work.
"If we move one facility up on the replacement list, or add a facility to that list, then we have to move another facility down the list or remove it," spokesman Gregor said.
The airport's expansion will be the largest in its 41-year history. Officials say they hope to turn Sacramento's increasingly crowded airfield into a facility that can compete better with San Francisco and Oakland for Northern California business.
The first step is a new four-story, glass-and-steel central terminal to replace outdated Terminal B.
For the moment, another hotel issue stands in the way. County officials are negotiating to buy the existing Host Marriott hotel at the airport to knock it down to make room.
Airport officials said they are within days of an agreement. Hotel company officials said only that negotiations were continuing. County officials said they are prepared to use eminent domain if negotiations fail.
The new terminal is scheduled to open in 2011. Airport executives then intend to knock down Terminal B and build a multistory garage.
Those officials say they are especially excited about plans for the full-service hotel with panoramic views to be built on top of the new terminal. It would allow travelers to check into hotel rooms just an escalator ride up from airline ticket counters.
But it's been a case of an irresistible force hitting an immovable object.
The federal air traffic control tower, built in 1967, sits in the center of the airport, not far from the planned new terminal.
FAA spokesman Gregor said in an e-mail Monday that Sacramento is not on the FAA's current tower replacement list.
Sacramento airport officials, however, said they have been told informally by the FAA it expects to start the process in 2012 that would lead to building a tower.
Failing to persuade the FAA it should move that date up, Sacramento officials last year appealed to a higher authority: They got several local congressional representatives to write to the secretary of transportation.
In a response letter last March, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters backed the FAA's assertion that Sacramento should pay for any tower move because the airport expansion was causing the potential line-of-sight problem.
With their construction deadline bearing down, airport officials recently knocked the hotel's west side down from 10 to seven stories, cutting hotel rooms from about 200 to 185.
Airport director Acree declined Monday to estimate how much extra expense his agency has incurred trying to get the control tower moved.
"If I tried to (add up the costs), my anxieties would just go up," Acree said.
Acree said he remains "cautiously optimistic" the airport will meet its midsummer construction date.
Air traffic controllers in Sacramento say they have mixed feelings about what's coming. They are pleased that, as they guide planes to landing, they won't suddenly get an eyeful of hotel instead. But several said they don't look forward to pile drivers banging a few feet away, and wouldn't mind someday having a new, modern tower in a more secure site on airport grounds.
As for airport architects, they say shortening the west side of the hotel is not all bad.
"It may create a more interesting-looking building than a square block at the end of the terminal," said Brent Kelley of Corgan Associates.
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