The cloudy future of Edmonton's City Centre Airport may also be voted on in a fall plebiscite.
Envision Edmonton, a business-backed group fighting to keep the airport open, presented a petition with 92,000 signatures on it to the city in late August. Officials were still reviewing it in early September to decide if it was sufficient to force a plebiscite on the future of the airport and its 500-plus acre site, which many feel would provide a huge redevelopment opportunity for Alberta's capital.
Presentation of the petition followed a vote earlier in the summer to begin a phased-in shutdown of the airport. Work has already started to decommission one of the airport's two runways.
The airport has averaged around 80,000 air-traffic movements a year over the past five years, but isn't served by major commercial carriers and isn't suitable for fully loaded larger aircraft such as the Boeing 737s that make up the dominant-in-Alberta WestJet fleet.
Still, the airport's use by medical aircraft, smaller business planes and other commercial users is something Envision Edmonton supporters want to maintain.
They see the property as having potential for a future bus terminal and light-rail transit station - planes, trains and automobiles meeting just north of the city's downtown adjacent to the primary east-west highway through the city.
Supporters of closing the airport see great redevelopment potential in the site, something that could enhance the city's tax base and strengthen its coffers through land sales of more than $400 million.
Edmonton International Airport has enjoyed growing volume in recent years, but its location south of the city has long made access difficult for residents and businesses downtown and in the city's north end. While opening of the southeast and southwest sections of the capital's outer ring road have improved timely access to the major airport, the fight to save the smaller inner-city airfield remains alive and in the air.
from Western Investor, October 2010
