Aero-tropo-what?
Aero-tropo-what?
Posted By Matthew Hrodey On March 22, 2010 (5:05 am) In Our Stories on www.MilwaukeeNewsBuzz.com
By Matt Hrodey
In the city of the future, all roads lead to the airport.
At least they do in international consultant John Kasarda’s “aerotropolis,” where offices, factories, four-star hotels, golf courses, theaters, warehouses, medical clinics, fine restaurants and shipping centers cluster around an airport like metal shavings on a magnet.
Milwaukee and a group of municipalities to the south are buying into the idea, which Kasarda says can transform an airport like General Mitchell into a city within a city. The aerotropolis is most common in Asia, where the mammoth Hong Kong International Airport makes an imposing example. According to Fast Company Magazine, the transportation hub “already has a mini-city stationed on a nearby island for its 45,000 workers, and SkyCity, a complex of office towers, convention centers and hotels will soon be visible from its ticket counters.” Oh, and it also has a nine-hole golf course, a 3D cinema and shopping to rival Beverly Hills.
Kasarda has consulted in Memphis, Indianapolis, Detroit, Bangkok and China. He’s also a business professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Though often credited with coining the term “aerotropolis,” he told the Beijing Times he first heard the word while working in China in 1994.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Christopher Larson, whose district contains the airport, described the airport-anchored city as “a single marketplace where you can do everything you could do in a larger city.” He says he sees the potential but also the value of local leaders sitting down and outlining common goals.
A spin-off from the Airport Gateway Business Association, which is lead by former south-side commercial banker Tom Rave, hopes to win classification as a non-profit this spring and become a unified planning agency for the airport region.
Rave says he hopes the Milwaukee Gateway Aerotropolis Corp., incorporated in December, will become a charitable organization, not a non-profit business league, this spring using an IRS rule that considers assisting government a charity. The 501(c)3 tax-exempt status would help the group raise money, he says.
The Business Association has already pitched in $15,000, and the Corp. is asking municipalities that sign onto the initiative to contribute $5,000. But it’s not a requirement. “We’re trying to be sensitive to the economic conditions,” Rave says.
Municipalities sign on
To date, the City of Milwaukee, Cudahy, Greendale, Greenfield, Oak Creek, Saint Francis and South Milwaukee officials have passed resolutions endorsing the “Gateway Aerotropolis Corporation and its collaborative planning efforts.” Franklin and Milwaukee County are expected to consider the plan in April.
The corp. could hire Kasarda, who the Business Association paid to visit Milwaukee in July. He toured the airport and met with local leaders, including Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. “He thinks there’s a lot of potential here,” Rave says. The executive director says he received a proposal from Kasarda for consulting services but declined to release the price tag.
Larson and Rave say General Mitchell is expanding its reach, drawing passengers from Northern Illinois who want to avoid O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. The county supervisor says the competition between Southwest Airlines, AirTran Airways and Republic Airways, purchaser of MidWest Airlines, signals the airport is on the rise. “We’ve got three major airlines fighting for market dominance,” he says.
Construction of the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line would be a great boon for Aerotropolis promoters, who say the ultra-modern business hub could unite land, air and sea transportation. “It’s a design for speed and efficiency. It needs a freeway, and it needs rail,” says Witkowski, who Larson credits with starting the aerotropolis ball rolling in Milwaukee.
Witkowski, who named his aldermanic district the “Garden District” in 2009 and authored legislation earlier this year creating a Milwaukee image task force to “assess the perceptions and image of greater Milwaukee,” is a promoter.
Rave hopes to maintain a feeling of consensus among Corp. stakeholders. “We’re dealing with a broad range of municipalities who don’t always have a history of sitting down and working together,” he says. “We have a consensus among all these governments so far.”
A first meeting of the board is scheduled for April 7 at the Best Western Hotel, 5105 S. Howell Ave., Milwaukee.
Gateway Aerotropolis Corp. mission statement:
“The Gateway aerotropolis is a public-private partnership focused around General Mitchell International Airport that fosters regional economic collaboration by efficiently linking the region’s air, rail, road and shipping transportation capabilities. The partnership will focus on the evolution and implementation of a comprehensive strategy to generate the growth of business and communities in an aesthetically inviting aerotropolis area.”
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