Larger airside will be home to fewer planes

TAMPA -- The new Airside E at Tampa International Airport will be more than twice as large as the building it replaces, yet it will accommodate fewer aircraft than other, smaller airsides in the complex.

It will have a state-of-the-art baggage system, large modern shuttle cars and an impressive view of arriving and departing airplanes.

It will be ready to begin operations in 10 months.

Members of the board of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority on Thursday toured the facility, which is little more than a skeleton of concrete, steel and anticipation at the moment. But when it opens in October 2002, Airside E will accommodate the largest jets flying today, Boeing 777s. It will boast a baggage system that bypasses most human contact, transporting luggage directly from curbside or ticket counter to its plane. And the airside will face TIA's principal north-south runway.

"It's going to be spectacular," said Stephen Mitchell, a Tampa attorney who is a member of the aviation authority board.

The $120-million project -- a price that includes the cost of the demolition of the old, original, asbestos-ridden Airside E -- will produce a 276,000-square-foot building where a 112,000-square-foot building once stood. The new airside will have 14 gates, compared with the old one's 10.

The principal tenant in the new airside will be Delta Air Lines, which will take nine of the gates. Officials are talking to United Airlines and Air Canada about moving in as well. "The old airside was 30 years old," said Bill Connors, senior director of planning and development. "We have built other airsides, but this is the first new one built on the site of an old one."

Although the new Airside E will be larger than either airsides A or F, each of those has one more gate than the new facility.

"They don't have to handle 777s," Connors said.

Cargo, baggage and food service will be handled on the ground, at the apron level. Two shuttle cars in each direction will dock on the second level in the security lobby, which will open up onto restaurants, shops and the gates. The third level will accommodate Delta's Crown Room and office space.

"There will be two themed restaurants on the second level, Casa Bacardi and Cafe Da Vinci," said airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan. "

Art for the facility will include seven Depression-era Works Progress Administration murals owned by the authority. They were painted by local artist George Snow Hill in 1939 and are undergoing restoration.

The aviation authority board had planned on closing down Airside D for renovation as soon as Airside E reopened, but an uncertain revenue picture after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 put that project on indefinite hold.

In other action Thursday, the authority board approved the escalation of development rent for an office building on the same parcel of property leased by the developers of the new International Plaza.

The escalation will begin in 2015 and continue through the remaining 65 years of the lease. The increased revenue to the aviation authority will come to more than $8.7-million on the office building lease alone. It is the latest in a series of rent increases agreed to by developers, including an escalation worth $54-million on the mall property itself.

The leases, which date back several decades, were called into question by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, who said they appeared to be based on an artificially low appraisal, violating a federal requirement that airports get fair-market value for land leased for nonaviation use.

The Federal Aviation Administration overruled that finding last year. The aviation authority sought the increases so the leases could not be questioned again.

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