SPECIAL REPORT: LAND DEVELOPMENT
A walk in the park
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Airport business parks have moved from basic builds to world-class corporate locations, writes Oliver Clark.
n the not too distant past a few drab offi ces and prefabricated warehouses set along the main access road were all a company could expect in terms of an airport business premises – but today it’s a very different story with some airports at the cutting edge of business park
planning and development. While the economic value of locating near to an airport with its
international connections has long been appreciated, the last 10 years have seen a boom in high quality, self-contained business parks springing up that rival anything found downtown. It’s all part of making an airport a business destination in its own right,
and with 64,000sqm of spacious, modern offi ces and warehouses, the multi-purpose Avioport Logistics Park at Milan Malpensa is a good example. Nestled in the Italian Ticino national park and boasting several ‘turnkey’
commercial properties, an integrated road network, loading and manoeuvring bays and even a bar and restaurant, the business park has been so well conceived and executed, its won a national award. Voted the most innovative business park in Italy last year by the trade
group Assologistica Italia, the Avioport has attracted a mixture of Italian and high profi le global tenants, such as FedEx, DHL, Agusta Westland and SASCO and, it’s currently being expanded .
AIRPORT WORLD/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2011 So what is the secret of its success? “It’s a case of supply and demand,”
says Frank Morel, director of Real Estate Development at Schiphol Real Estate, a subsidiary of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, which conceived of the Avioport in partnership with local partner Finair in 2003. “Firstly it has to be built to the right specifi cations, such as making sure the
there is suffi cient fl oor space for the tenants needs, that there is maximum storage areas for goods and plenty of space for manoeuvring trucks. “Secondly, accessibility is essential, it must be connected to major
road networks and within easy reach of the airport. Thirdly, be fl exible, we don’t offer just one offi ce but four offi ces that can be sub-divided into 12 units, while warehouses can be separated or combined as the need arises,” Morel explains. That Avioport provides good connections is in no doubt. The park is
one mile from Malpensa Airport, which offers its clients 170 international connections; the airport is linked by express rail services to downtown Milan, while freight terminals operated by Hupac and Ambrogio are just 10 km away; a good road network links the business park to nearby cities, such as Milan, Turin, Genova, Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza. The guiding principles behind the Avioport Logistics Park are based on Amsterdam Schiphol’s globally applied ‘AirportCity’ formula.
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