"Revenue Generated by Fort Myers, Fla., Airport Interests Bay County Leaders"

Thursday, April 3, 2003

Revenue Generated by Fort Myers, Fla., Airport Interests Bay County Leaders
The Fort Myers (FL) News Herald


FORT MYERS, Fla.--A delegation of Bay County business and government leaders
made a fact-finding visit to Southwest Florida International Airport on
Wednesday.

Their aim was to compare notes on the Fort Myers airport and the proposed
$210 million relocation of the Bay County-Panama City International Airport.

The delegation came away with one undisputed fact: Airports bring more than
passengers to town -- they bring dollars.

Lots of dollars.

Southwest Florida International Airport generated a regional economic impact
of more than $2 billion last year. Ricando & Associates, a Cincinnati-based
airport consulting firm, based the amount on a recently completed economic
impact study.

Along with the $2 billion in economic output, businesses linked to the
airport generated almost 44,000 jobs and salaries totaling $885 million in
Southwest Florida.

The airport met local opposition when the decision was made to vacate
outdated Page Field and build the new one. Page Field was constricted by a
major highway and neighborhoods.

Cost overruns placed the project at $93 million, or triple the original
estimate. Perhaps the biggest cost increase was due to the unexpected high
cost of land acquisition.

"Looking back, it was a bargain," said Robert M. "Bob" Ball, executive
director of the Lee County Port Authority. "The (economic impact) study
quantifies the fact that the airport's importance extends beyond moving
people and cargo." 

Ball continued, "Almost everyone in the region, even those who never
directly use the airport or its services, enjoys some economic benefit from
airport operations." 

Ball said the $2 billion economic output includes money spent by companies
and agencies doing business at the airport, by visitors who arrive there,
and by travel agencies within the airport's service area, according to the
percentage of their business that is aviation-related.

It sounds like the airport, which opened in 1983 and has served more than 4
million passengers each year since 1994, was just what Fort Myers needed.

Note the past tense.

The Lee County Port Authority, which oversees the airport, has started
construction of the airport's Midfield Terminal Complex, which will cost
$385 million and ultimately will have 65 passenger gates. That amount
includes $52 million in terminal costs to meet Transportation Security
Administration improvements resulting from Sept. 11, 2001.

Ball told the Bay County delegation the airport's success can be traced to
one factor: An unswerving port authority that looked far into the future and
never wavered on the need to build a new airport.

Most of the delegation members nodded in agreement.

"It sounds like we (Panama City's proposed new airport) are about where they
were 20 years ago," said Earl Durden, who owns the Bay Line Railroad and
serves on the board of the Florida Department of Transportation.

"What we have to do, is go back to Bay County and convince the people back
home how important a new airport is to the future growth of the area,"
Durden said. "After seeing this, we have to think about the future." 

Jim Looker of Regions Bank added, "There's no question an airport like this
is the engine that drives Fort Myers' economy.

"It could drive our economy, too." 

Larry Dantzler, a member of the Bay County-Panama City Airport Authority
Board, said, "I wish some of the naysayers that oppose the relocation of the
airport would have made this trip, and observed what forward-thinking
community leaders can do." 

Ball told the delegation to stay the course, especially considering the fact
the St. Joe Co. is donating 4,000 acres to house the airport.

"Free land is good," he said. "About 25 (percent) to 30 percent of our cost
for the new terminal is for land." 

The trip was sponsored by the Bay County Economic Development Alliance.


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