"Officials hope 2005 ends terminal delays at Augusta, Ga., airport"

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Officials hope 2005 ends terminal delays at Augusta, Ga., airport
The Augusta (GA) Chronicle


There's only one obstacle standing in the way of Augusta Regional Airport's
new terminal, but it's a big one.

More than $30 million remains unsecured.

It's the reason airport officials are saying that next month's scheduled
groundbreaking on the highly anticipated project has rapidly gone from
doable to merely pie-in-the-sky.

"It's just not going to happen," Airport Director Buster Boshears said of
the November start date.

This is not the first time construction on the terminal has been delayed.
The original plan called for work to begin right after Masters Week 2004,
but that date was pushed back to August and then November.

Now airport leaders have scrapped their original timetable and are working
from Plan B, in which the groundbreaking is out of the question until at
least January or February.

However, airport officials remain optimistic about the project, which is
expected to take more than two years and will be done in four phases.
Because contractors will build the new 84,000-square-foot terminal over the
current 52,000-square-foot facility, flights will continue to run during the
entire period, with passengers rerouted as needed.

Mr. Boshears said the most recent holdup resulted from a Richmond County
governmental requirement that all project money be in hand, not just
expected, before the work begins.

In the case of the terminal, the total price tag will be about $45 million,
including interest costs and fees associated with municipal bonds that Mr.
Boshears and the airport's financial team hope to sell.

Of that, about $15 million, or one-third, is in the bank.

In the next few months Mr. Boshears, Aviation Commission Chairman Cedric
Johnson and many of the airport's consultants will be selling bonds,
applying for more FAA dollars and lobbying legislators to come up with the
$30 million difference.

"The emphasis is really on the financial model right now," said Bernie
Silverstein, the longest-serving of the current aviation commissioners.
"It's the deciding factor about the schedule for the terminal project."

By far the most labor intensive part of the effort will be securing the
bonds.

Mike Moroney, a consultant with Ricondo & Associates who is helping with the
bond rating process, said the airport likely will try to sell about $21
million in bonds. 

Of that, $15 million will be repaid with passenger facility charges and $6
million with airline and tenant fees.

"Our revenue financing program is based on the idea that users of the
airport are paying for upgrades to the airport, " Mr. Moroney said. "It will
be a self-sustaining enterprise."

He said the hope is to meet with bond-rating agencies by the end of the
year. Once the ratings are returned, Mr. Boshears will go to the Augusta
Commission and ask that the project be adopted and the bond resolution
issued.

Bids for contractors will go out as the bonds are rated, so "both parts come
together at a single point," Mr. Moroney said. 

"Ideally we want Buster Boshears to be able to look the commissioners in the
eye and to tell them we have bids in hand and we know exactly what it's
going to cost," he said.

Over the next three years, airport officials also will apply for a combined
$7 million in grants from the FAA.

If this money does not come through, nonessential portions of the project,
including parking lot expansions and landscaping, will be pushed back or
deleted altogether, based on how much money is available.

"We think it's more a matter of time, not if we get that money," said Bob
Anderson, a consultant with The LPA Group Inc., the Columbia firm that
designed the terminal.

The terminal project was conceived nearly a decade ago. In the years since,
the design and location of the facility have changed at least six times.

The overhaul was needed largely because the current facilities are outdated.
Mr. Anderson said the more than 60--year-old terminal, originally part of an
aviation school, was never intended to be used for an airport and is laid
out illogically. Whereas in most airports passengers first enter the
ticketing area, at Augusta Regional they come to baggage claim first.

"We've done a lot with what we've got," Mr. Silverstein said, but it's time
to move on.

A new terminal will be an economic engine, creating an abundance of jobs,
and it will serve as a "showplace for the community" by attracting more
businesses to the area, he said.

"When businesses are deciding to come here, they look at the total
community," Mr. Silverstein said. "I think the airport plays an important
part in that."

Airport consultants are projecting that passenger numbers will increase 3.6
percent each year once the terminal is completed and that enplanement will
increase from about 200,000 in 2003 to nearly 240,000 in 2012.

This takes into account the pullout of Continental Express from the airport
later this month, which will send between 10,000 and 15,000 passengers a
year to other airports, Mr. Moroney said.

Officials hope the new facility will lure at least one low-cost carrier to
Augusta.

The strategy worked for Columbia, which added low-cost carrier Independence
Air after its new terminal opened.

But experts caution that an improved building does not guarantee success.

Mr. Silverstein said he doubts the terminal itself will bring carriers but
that better facilities will give the airport a better chance.

"If we're being looked at and we happen to have a modern building, it would
have to be a positive," he said.

BUILDING THE TERMINAL

The project is being divided into four phases so the airport can remain
open:

--Phase 1 (10 months): Workers will build a 23,000-foot concourse between
Atlantic Southeast Airlines' holding room and US Airways' holding room.

--Phase 2 (four months): ASA's holding room will become a temporary baggage
claim area, and US Airways' holding room will become a temporary ticketing
area. Both holding rooms are now outside the main terminal. The rental car
agencies and other tenants will move out of the main terminal.

--Phase 3 (12 months): The main terminal will be demolished while the new
terminal goes up. This includes administrative offices and conference rooms
on the second floor of the building.

--Phase 4 (four months): Car rental agencies and concession businesses will
move back in to the new terminal. The temporary buildings will be removed.

Source: Augusta Regional Airport


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