SPECIAL REPORT: SUSTAINABILITY
Auckland International Airport continues to develop its airport site.
and other ‘airport cities’ such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam Schiphol and Incheon. “We are in the very early stages of developing our plans,”
admits Ackerman. “We have 53 square miles of land here, most of which is for aeronautical use, but that still leaves quite a bit of land on our perimeter, so we are focused on putting plans in place that will give non-aviation uses on our side of the fence but also with our neighbours.” Ackerman says that DIA is working closely with neighbouring
municipalities and signifi cant landowners to enable the airport to grow and continue to be the economic engine that fuels the region while giving private landowners and municipalities shared benefi ts. “The area available for development is still being assessed, but
it is in the thousands of acres,” Ackerman says, noting the property measures at slightly over 34,000 acres. “Some of that property is located in the north east corner of the airport and is furthest away from our current development. There is quite a bit of land out there that may have a 30-year time horizon, and we have other land we believe is developable now.” Unlike DFW and Denver, Auckland International Airport is situated in
a coastal environment on a peninsula, so most neighbours are separated from the airport by the ocean and coastal inlets. Dubbed the ‘city of sails’, one might surmise that land available
for development would be on the smaller end of the scale. However, Auckland’s general manager of property, Peter Alexander, reveals that the airport potentially has around 400 hectares of land available for commercial development, with planning in progress for 260 hectares. “This is a signifi cant amount of land for New Zealand, a small country with a small economy,” says Alexander.
34 AIRPORT WORLD/AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010
Alexander mentions that the airport currently has
NZ$115 million of development projects underway including a 263-room, four-star Novotel hotel directly adjacent to the international terminal. It is first hotel to be constructed on the airport and will open in May 2011. It will be joined by two-star, 125-room Formule1 hotel in time for
the start of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in September/ October 2011. An Accor brand common in Europe and Australia, this will be the first Formule1 property in New Zealand. The airport will be the ultimate owner of the Formule1
property, while the Novotel Auckland Airport is a joint venture with investors that include Accor and a local tribal investment group called Tainui Holdings. “We have an indigenous people here, the Amori, and our local
tribe is Tainui,” Alexander says. “The tribe seeks to make investments in Tainui-owned shops and hotels and they are the majority investor in the Novotel.” In addition to its hotel holdings, Auckland is developing two
office buildings, a training centre and three industrial facilities in pre-planned precincts. Alexander said the flurry of development activity has taken place as a result of a paradigm change in strategy. “Prior to this, there had been a period of three years where the
airport had been without development,” he says. “I started in October 2008, and our CEO started in August 2008. We reviewed the strategy with the Board and decided we wanted to kick-start our development programme. So this has been a very deliberate action to get very active with the market and to attract tenants here and to become a significant developer. “We are quite pleased. It is always good to make a plan, but it is better when it works.”
AW
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