NEWS |
169-98: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE , December 17, 1998
"Ensuring the safe, speedy and efficient movement of air cargo is important to the economic vitality of the bistate metropolitan area," Port Authority Chairman Lewis M. Eisenberg said following the monthly Board meeting. "Our airports handled nearly three million tons of cargo this year -- making them the world's busiest air cargo complex -- and we're forecasting continued strong growth. Today we are authorizing more than half-a-million square feet of new state-of-the-art capacity at both of our international airports to accommodate that growth."
At Kennedy Airport, the lease agreements call for the construction of two new buildings on two adjacent sites in the airport's North Cargo Area. One will consist of a 240,000-square-foot facility, plus a 32,000-square-foot building for the maintenance and repair of supporting ground services equipment, on a 24-acre site. The other building is proposed to be a multi-tenant cargo facility comprising 155,000 square feet on 18 acres. Airis Development Group, a third party developer, will design, build and operate the new facilities.
The Board authorized a 17-year lease with Airis JFK, which will invest about $150 million. The Port Authority will provide paving and utilities to the premises.
Airis Development Group, a subsidiary of Airis Corporation, chartered in Delaware, is an aviation facility development company. Established in 1985, the firm has completed or planned more than 3,602,000 square feet of building area, with a collective value of more than $510 million.
This includes two new state-of-the-art air cargo facilities at Newark International Airport, totaling approximately 280,000 square feet.
For Newark International Airport, the Board authorized a 25-year lease with Continental Airlines for six acres of land in the North Cargo Area, where the airline will construct a new cargo building of 100,000 square feet, with a 75,000-square-foot canopy at an estimated cost of $50 million.
Kennedy and Newark airports set new records in cargo volume in 1997. JFK handled 1.7 million tons, making it the fourth-busiest cargo airport in the nation. Newark International handled 1,064,000 tons, ranking it eighth in the U.S. The value of the cargo handled at the two airports exceeded $156 billion.
The New York/New Jersey region's air cargo industry generates nearly 85,000 jobs and some $9 billion a year in economic activity, including $3 billion a year in wages and salaries. Including today's lease agreements, the Port Authority will have created more than 2.4 million square feet of new cargo-handling facilities at the airports since 1992.
end