FRIDAY: Ground broken for new Falls airport terminal (2:52 p.m.)

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May 16, 2008

Anonymous The Niagara Gazette Fri May 16, 2008, 02:52 PM EDT

A transportation project nearly a decade in the making finally launched on Friday as state and local officials broke ground on a new $29.7 million terminal at Niagara Falls International Airport.

The official start to construction put a formal end to nearly a decade of talk about what to do with Niagara County’s lone airport - a facility with potential that for many years, and for for a variety of reasons, never quite managed to live up to expectations.

Backed by a new marketing strategy and confident in the recent success enjoyed by the facility’s primary passenger carrier, airport operators and long-time advocates are as enthusiastic as ever about the future of air transportation along Niagara Falls Boulevard.

“Fourteen months from now, I’m confident we’ll be in the new terminal, welcoming new airlines, new charters and new life,” said Lawrence Meckler, executive director of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, the entity in charge of airport operations.

The new terminal is scheduled to open in July of 2009. At 69,430 square feet, it will be three times the size of the existing facility and will include a second story that will allow for a common airport feature the old terminal did not - passenger jet bridges. NFTA officials say the new facility also will bring NFIA in line with current standards for security and processing operations as it will include updated inspection facilities as well as in-line baggage screening areas, eight stationery ticket counters, added room for concessions and car rental operations and a multi-model Metro transit center.

The process of turning the place around experienced a number of stops and starts dating back to the late 1990s, including an ill-fated bid by the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency to wrest control of the facility away from the NFTA and a proposal to allow the Spanish firm, Cintra, to operate the airport as part of a 99-year lease agreement.

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