$82M Google Airport Terminal Set - East Idaho News
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$82M Google Airport Terminal Set

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ht sj airport landside perspective tk 130605 wblog?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1370478109100Gensler and SchenkelShultz(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — A new $82 million facility at San Jose International Airport that will support the personal aircraft of Google executives and other Silicon Valley executive fliers is scheduled to break ground this fall.

The private development will take place on 29 acres at Mineta San Jose International Airport in northern California, the former location of a long-term parking lot that became available as part of the airport’s $1.3 billion modernization plan.

In April, the San Jose City Council voted to grant delegated authority to the airport staff to finalize negotiations and execute a 50-year lease to Signature Flight Support. The company, which operates more than 100 locations in the U.S., Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, is a subsidiary of BBA Aviation.

Signature Flight Support’s development is in partnership with Blue City Holdings, a company representing the personal aircraft of the principals at Google. Google’s headquarters in Mountain View is about 12 miles northwest of the airport.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 270,000 square feet of LEED Gold-certified facilities will include an executive terminal, office space, hangars and aircraft servicing facilities. Google aircraft will occupy five of the seven hangars, according to Rosemary Barnes, a spokeswoman for the airport. The new development will also have ramp space to accommodate large business jets, such as the Boeing Business Jet 737 and Boeing B767.

Barnes said the lease agreement is expected to be finalized this month and Signature intends to break ground on the project in the fall of 2013.

Talk of this new facility on the airport’s west side began around 2010, coinciding with an updated master plan of the airport’s renovations.

The Google executives’ previous lease with Moffett Federal Airfield, known as Moffett Field, on the border of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, Calif., is expected to come to an end in 2014. Moffett Field is about three miles away from Google’s headquarters. NASA serves as custodian of Moffett Field, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote a letter to Google asking for more information about its relationship with Moffett Field after Consumer Watchdog published a report in Jan. 2011, questioning whether the company was unfairly receiving advantageous treatment with its hangar rental.

Signature’s facility will provide $2.6 million in annual rent to the airport, and a minimum annual guarantee of $400,000 in, “annual fuel flowage fee revenues.”  The project will generate 150 to 200 construction jobs and 36 permanent “on-airport jobs” as well as 370 direct and indirect jobs, according to the airport.

Mineta San Jose International Airport offers about 120 daily flights on 13 domestic and international carriers to 30 nonstop destinations.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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