The years of inactivity at Niagara Falls International Airport may soon be coming to an end, thanks to a deal put together by Niagara Falls Redevelopment founder Edwin Cogan and approved last week by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.
At the center of the deal is an option to purchase, for $4.5 million, the former Saint Gobain/Carborundum Coated Abrasives building at the eastern end of the airport runway. The 500,000-square-foot building will be transformed into a major cargo handling and warehouse facility.
"The building was perfect for the purpose and we bought it," Cogan said, adding that the sale is expected to close within 60 days. Work on building a concrete apron capable of accommodating large jets will begin shortly afterwards, he said. "We're serious players and we want to do cargo, so we bought the building."
Cogan owns a 50 percent interest in Vista Cargo International, which operates a major cargo facility at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. For the Niagara Falls deal, he will partner with Speed Transportation, a Kenmore firm specializing in long-distance trucking with considerable warehouse holdings throughout the Niagara Frontier, and O'Shanter Development, a Toronto-based real estate company that holds the option on the building.
The group, known collectively as the Niagara Falls Air Cargo Consortium, was formed after representatives from the companies met in December at an NFTA conference on the airport's future.
Since founding NFR in 1997, Cogan has often been the target of criticism from Mayor Irene Elia and the Niagara Gazette. Pointing to the airport deal and NFR's $3.5 million purchase of the former Nabisco building last month, Cogan said the criticism has been misdirected.
"You've got the casino but, other than that, I haven't seen anyone else rushing in here and spending considerable amounts of private money to try to help turn the city around," he said.
"The casino is a piece of the puzzle that has to include development of the airport and the establishment of a major convention center here."
Cogan said the investment of more than $20 million here since 1997 speaks for itself.
"The criticism's always about the shovel in the ground," he said. "Well, they put a shovel in the ground at AquaFalls and what do you have? A hole in the ground. Take all the other private developers here and pile them up. Put them all together and it pales next to what we've done, both in terms of money and ideas."
NFTA officials said the agency's air rights deal with the consortium would not affect its ongoing consideration of a proposal from the Niagara Airport Development Corp., a subsidiary of the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency.
The IDA group formed after a proposed 99-year lease for the airport with the Spanish corporation, Cintra SA, was rejected by the Federal Aviation Administration. Players in the IDA group have included TBI Airport Management -- which owns and operates 14 airports around the world, including the Albany International Airport -- Norstar Development and the AFL-CIO, which plans to build a $7 million training facility to accommodate the need for workers at the airport.
AFL-CIO Economic Development Coordinator Phillip Wilcox said the proposal is a natural extension of the union's job-training efforts in the building trades here.
"What we can bring to the table is our experience in career development support," he told the Reporter. "We're looking at the creation of more than 1,000 jobs, in everything from avionics to culinary and security skills, and there is going to be a need for workers with those skills."
The IDA group is reportedly prepared to make a $30 million commitment to getting the airport up and running, with a particular emphasis on international charter flights.
NFTA Executive Director Lawrence Meckler said that talks are ongoing, and include everything from airport operations to its actual ownership.
"We're not closing the door on anything at this point," he said.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | May 6 2003 |