New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Oct. 20 that the state would open design competitions to fix and upgrade New York City’s aging airports.
However, Cuomo said little about where the money would come from to pay for those multibillion-dollar renovations, improvements, and construction. Capital expenditures would normally fall to the state’s Port Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
This lack of specifics didn’t stop the governor from making design and operational suggestions himself, such as linking LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan via ferries and the Long Island Railroad, or adding a hotel to Kennedy Airport.
The New York Times reported that Republic Airport on Long Island and Stewart Airport in Hudson Valley would also be involved in this master plan. Tax-free zones would be established around those two airports to encourage business investment, according to the New York Observer.
One question that remains unanswered is how this design competition intersects with—or might potentially impede—the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s selecting a winning bid from three consortiums for the $3.6 billion construction of a new main terminal at LaGuardia. The Port Authority operates LaGuardia and Kennedy.
Cuomo didn’t think the design competition would counteract any construction contract, although he did state that the Port Authority had been moving too slowly on its plans to improve the airports.
The design competition would commence in late November, and three finalists for each airport would be chosen two months later, and awarded up to $500,000 for further development.
Vice President Joe Biden, who was with Cuomo for the announcement of the design competition, and who famously compared LaGuardia to airports in third-world countries, was noncommittal about the federal government’s financial involvement in these projects.
The area’s third big airport, Newark-Liberty in New Jersey, is not part of the design competition, but already has $8 billion earmarked for upgrades. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark handled roughly one-third of the nation’s airline flights in 2013, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.
Related Stories
| Dec 10, 2013
16 great solutions for architects, engineers, and contractors
From a crowd-funded smart shovel to a why-didn’t-someone-do-this-sooner scheme for managing traffic in public restrooms, these ideas are noteworthy for creative problem-solving. Here are some of the most intriguing innovations the BD+C community has brought to our attention this year.
| Nov 27, 2013
Wonder walls: 13 choices for the building envelope
BD+C editors present a roundup of the latest technologies and applications in exterior wall systems, from a tapered metal wall installation in Oklahoma to a textured precast concrete solution in North Carolina.
| Nov 26, 2013
Construction costs rise for 22nd straight month in November
Construction costs in North America rose for the 22nd consecutive month in November as labor costs continued to increase, amid growing industry concern over the tight availability of skilled workers.
| Nov 25, 2013
Building Teams need to help owners avoid 'operational stray'
"Operational stray" occurs when a building’s MEP systems don’t work the way they should. Even the most well-designed and constructed building can stray from perfection—and that can cost the owner a ton in unnecessary utility costs. But help is on the way.
| Nov 19, 2013
Top 10 green building products for 2014
Assa Abloy's power-over-ethernet access-control locks and Schüco's retrofit façade system are among the products to make BuildingGreen Inc.'s annual Top-10 Green Building Products list.
| Nov 15, 2013
Metal makes its mark on interior spaces
Beyond its long-standing role as a preferred material for a building’s structure and roof, metal is making its mark on interior spaces as well.
| Nov 13, 2013
Installed capacity of geothermal heat pumps to grow by 150% by 2020, says study
The worldwide installed capacity of GHP systems will reach 127.4 gigawatts-thermal over the next seven years, growth of nearly 150%, according to a recent report from Navigant Research.
| Oct 30, 2013
11 hot BIM/VDC topics for 2013
If you like to geek out on building information modeling and virtual design and construction, you should enjoy this overview of the top BIM/VDC topics.
| Oct 18, 2013
Researchers discover tension-fusing properties of metal
When a group of MIT researchers recently discovered that stress can cause metal alloy to fuse rather than break apart, they assumed it must be a mistake. It wasn't. The surprising finding could lead to self-healing materials that repair early damage before it has a chance to spread.
| Sep 30, 2013
Smart building systems key to new Wisconsin general aviation terminal’s net zero target
The Outagamie County Regional Airport’s new 8,000 sf general aviation terminal was designed to achieve net zero.