A $10 million, 18,000-square-foot expansion to speed up security screening capacity is one of several infrastructure projects planned for Burlington International Airport.
Gene Richards, the airport’s director of aviation, said Friday the expansion would allow a speed-up of Transportation Security Administration wait times, especially during peak morning hours.
The airport has two TSA stations that can process 200 people per hour each. The expanded, centralized facility will allow the airport to process 600 people per hour.
“There are times in the summer when we potentially leave people behind because they either show up late, or the lines get too long,” he said. “This new system will allow people to get processed, if they get here in a timely manner, it will allow 200 more people per hour to be processed.”
The centralized TSA checkpoint will also make the airport easier for customers to navigate, as it will be near where fliers get their tickets, he said.
Other projects, including a hotel, a rental car car wash and runway work, are in store for 2020, the airport’s 100th year.
The federal Department of Transportation announced the $10 million grant last month as part of a $485 million investment from the federal government in the country’s airports.
Richards said the airport expects the grant to be confirmed in fall 2020, with construction starting either late fall 2020 or early spring 2021. Construction is set to take a year, so the airport anticipates completion either in late 2021 or early the following year.
The expanded TSA capacity will allow the airport to add two gates as it continues efforts to expand its offerings, Richards said. The airport has 13 gates and there is no timeline to add the two additional gates, he said.
“We hope TSA will bring in new TSA monitoring equipment when we do this, and it will help with the speed and the processing time and experience of customers at the airport,” he said.
The airport “absolutely” is planning on adding more routes, Richards said. Seasonal routes to Denver and Orlando have been added in the past year and the airport is working on adding service to Boston and a couple other locations, he said.
The construction of a new 108-room hotel on airport property is another major construction project set to break ground next year. The project received Act 250 permitting Thursday, Richards said.
Dew Construction is developing the approximately $12 million project, Richards said.
Richards said the developer and airport had aimed to break ground on the project this year, but decided to wait until March due to increased costs of starting in the winter. He said construction is set to take a year and the hotel will open in spring 2021, a busy time at the airport.
“We want to make sure when we’re building it’s the most efficient time, and also when we’re opening our doors it’s the best for the business,” he said. “It doesn’t open up with a slow period, it will open up with the busiest time of the year.”
The airport is also working on a series of smaller projects, including a $6 million car wash for rental cars, which is being funded from rental car fees and is set to open in January, the start of the airport’s 100-year anniversary.
Richards said the airport is set to start and complete the third and final phase of improvements to its Taxiway G next year and finish renovations to its apron in 2020 or 2021.
The infrastructure improvements will improve safety at the airport and bring the airport up to date, Richards said.
“We’re going to be in pretty super shape as we hit 100 years old,” he said.
The airport is primarily using federal funding for the projects, with the feds providing 90% or more of the cost and the airport picking up the check for the local match.
F-35 noise mitigation funding
However, the airport and its owner, the city of Burlington, have not committed to picking up the check for the 10% match for noise mitigation efforts following the arrival of the F-35 fighter jet to the Vermont National Guard this year.
Richards said he was working to determine possible funding sources for that match, including the state, Department of Defense and energy-efficiency funding provided to utility companies.
South Burlington city leaders are concerned that the cost of sound mitigation might fall to their residents and Winooski residents.
Richards said he was optimistic that the airport could find a funding mechanism but that he did not think it was the airport’s responsibility to pay for the local match like it does for its own infrastructure projects.
“The reason we’re paying a 10% match (for infrastructure projects) is because … the money’s going back into the airport,” he said. “This money on the sound mitigation program is not going back into the infrastructure of the airport. So it’s really hard to justify spending money that’s not going back into the airport.”
South Burlington City Councilor Thomas Chittenden said last month he believes Burlington should be on the hook for the local match as the owner of the airport. South Burlington should only chip in if the city gets an expanded say in the governance of the airport, which is based in South Burlington but owned by Burlington, he said.
Burlington City Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District, expressed concerns about the effects of airport expansion on the climate crisis during a presentation from Richards at Monday’s council meeting.
Freeman said she did not support expanding the airport.
“It concerns me in the midst of what we’ve all acknowledged to be an ecological crisis, I don’t understand how we’re going to continue to tell ourselves we are going to maintain this system,” she said. “It’s completely impractical.”
Richards said he believes the 1.4 million people who travel out of the airport each year would drive to other airports to travel if Burlington’s airport did not exist and have an even worse effect on the climate.
