FUTURE INVESTMENT IN LAMBERT WOULD BE IN BOTH IN AVIATION & IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This week's Business Journal article by Jacob Kirn describes a strong case by St. Louis Lambert International Airport Director Rhonda?Hamm-Niebruegge for a major retrofit, investment in, and modernization of Lambert International Airport:

"Lambert's single-terminal makeover could cost $3B. Here's why its leader says the city can afford it."?| Jacob Kirn | St. Louis Business Journal | May 5, 2022

"The proposed new terminal at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. Construction would not start for at least four years, according to its leader.

A massive makeover of St. Louis Lambert International Airport — involving?consolidation to a single, 62-gate terminal?— could cost $3 billion, the facility's leader said, emphasizing that the price tag is necessary and manageable as debt has decreased and the feds put more money up for grabs.

"Is it a big dollar? Sure, but we have to think about where we go," Airport Director?Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge?said in an interview. "We're not going to build a Taj Mahal that says if you build it they will come. We're building something that allows us to grow where our forecasts think we are, and the ability to expand if need be..."

Ronda makes the case for a strategic major investment in consolidated terminal facilities and other improvements at Lambert, rather than continuing to make patch work investments of up to $1 billion, simply to keep the existing airport infrastructure functioning.

Beyond the aviation case for enhancement of Lambert International Airport, there is also a compelling economic development case to be made for investing in a making Lambert a competitive modern airport.

Having spent 14 years leading economic development in Denver prior to being recruited to serve as CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA) in the mid-90's --- I had the opportunity in Denver to be a lead private sector civic partner with Mayor Federico Pe?a and Mayor Wellington Webb, as well as then-Governor Roy Romer, in planning and developing Denver International Airport (DIA); in creating the 6-county Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (to help fund arts, cultural and scientific institutions); in creating the similar 6-county Stadium District (to help fund Coors Field and to recruit Major League Baseball); and in establishing The Denver Metro Network (a highly collaborative multi-year region-wide economic development initiative to help turn around a then-limping Denver economy, following the "collapse of the energy economy.")

In the case the investment in Denver International Airport (DIA), that investment in DIA was both an aviation infrastructure investment and an economic development investment --- and it achieved well beyond expectations on both counts!

Today, DIA is not only a long term transformational infrastructure asset for Denver and Colorado, but it is also the single greatest economic development driver in the Denver economy.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of DIA in 2015, then-Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper invited those of us in the public and private sectors who had been actively involved in the planning and development of DIA back to Denver for a "civic victory lap." Then, in 2018, Dick Monfort, the owner of the Colorado Rockies, convened a similar group of us who had been heavily engaged in the establishment of the 6-county Stadium District and in recruiting Major League Baseball to Colorado, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Rockies.

In both cases, then-editor Neal Westergaard of the Denver Business Journal invited several of us to pen guest articles chronicling the civic paths to create DIA and to recruit Major League Baseball, respectively.

In my 2015 Business Journal article, I cited an independent Booz Allen Study which projected that Denver International Airport would not only create thousands of construction jobs, but would also create 90,000 permanent jobs. In a presentation during that 2015 weekend, I also noted that the Metro Denver Network (the six-county collaborative regional economic development effort at the Greater Denver Corporation and the Chamber had completed "deals" which had generated over 200,000 new jobs).

Following that 2015 guest article, a member of Governor Hickenlooper's staff called me to point out that my Booz Allen Study number had actually been wrong --- my initial thought was, "here goes the Chamber of Commerce exaggerating job growth." However, the Governor's staff person pointed out that they had updated the number of permanent jobs created by Denver International Airport, and that the actual number was 179,000 jobs --- more than double what we had projected the airport to stimulate.

In my 2018 guest article below in the Denver Business Journal, I noted that correction regarding the actual 179,000 jobs generated by DIA:

"Denver, the Rockies at 25 and civic resolve at its best.” | Richard Fleming guest column | Denver Business Journal | September 7, 2018

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2018/09/04/guest-column-a-look-at-denver-the-rockies-at-25.html?surround=etf&u=11045160944f21c70b77a629396798&t=1536271926&j=83682331

My point? As the St. Louis and Missouri civic and business communities consider the merits of a substantial upgrade to and investment in Lambert International Airport, its terminals, and other facilities --- remember that we're considering both an airport investment in one of the "geographically best-located international airports in the nation," but also in what could be a major economic development generator, with a prospective high return-on-investment for both the bi-state St. Louis region and the State of Missouri.

As Rhonda?Hamm-Niebruegge suggests in this week's article, it's time for us to think "long term" when it come to the future of Lambert International Airport.

--- Dick Fleming, CEO, Community Development Ventures, Inc., CIC@4220, CORTEX Innovation District, St. Louis [email protected]