At a business luncheon Wednesday Mayor Frank Jackson told a crowd that Cleveland would once again be a great city and soon become "the world's gateway to the Midwest."
That gateway involves retaining Burke airport as a private jet facility and developing 600 acres around it. Yet, Jackson and the city's airport chief Ricky Smith were tentative about the grand plans in store for expansion at the airport.
Ricky Smith & Frank Jackson: It would be retail, restaurant, um perhaps some office space. But no. But again that is to be determined. We're not. It's just a concept. It's just making a decision that's providing an opportunity.
Jackson says the municipal parking lot and the bluffs nearby are ripe for development. Smith added that there's no plan for housing near the Burke airstrip and no need to assemble extra land for that kind of development even though the location is a prime by-the-lake spot.
Smith will give his official and presumably more detailed recommendation to the Mayor and FAA next month. Smith says if the city decided to close Burke, it would cost $1 billion to build a new runaway to accommodate added air traffic to Cleveland Hopkins airport. A cost that apparently won't be necessary to accommodate Continental's planned major expansion at Hopkins.
Ricky Smith: If Burke closes and that traffic all goes to either Hopkins or it goes to county or some other airports. The other airports don't have the capacity to handle the kind of aircraft that operates at Burke and the amount of aircraft. So, yes it would impact Cleveland Hopkins. And, that's a major reason why we wouldn't want to close Burke.
Improving Burke is just the start of Jackson's vision for what he calls "transportation regionalism." The vision plan as he calls it will include an "aerotropolis" or airline-related business district at Hopkins, along with a new taxi service starting next month.
Smith says a three-year plan for Hopkins will begin in early 2008.
Tasha Flournoy, 90.3.