Massport high on Hanscom

Expansion plans rile local activists

The Massachusetts Port Authority is continuing to push big plans for the future of L.G. Hanscom Field, including a hotel, facilities for cargo flights and more corporate jets, and a limousine garage - a vision likely to keep it at odds with activists who have been battling the authority for years.

As the latest controversy erupts over yet another prospect - an air and space museum at the airport - community groups are skeptical that Massport will try hard to safeguard surrounding residents from traffic and noise and preserve the area's unique historical heritage, valuable for attracting tourist dollars.

"Massport is killing the goose that laid the golden egg, because they cannot see anything but development," said Anna West Winter of Concord, executive director of Save Our Heritage. "They begin to look like a cancer that has nothing but the desire to grow, independent of the fact that they're killing the host."

But the harsh appraisal misses the point, according to officials at Massport, who say they have no choice but to try to reduce a persistent deficit by expanding their financial base, within their mission as a general aviation airport relieving air traffic at Logan International Airport in Boston.

"Logan has no hangar facilities for corporate or general aviation activity," said Massport senior project manager Thomas W. Ennis. "We're looking at meeting the business and general aviation demand. That's how we're hoping to get out of the red."

Ennis maintained that Massport officials do try to satisfy community demands.

Still, by definition, airports are big and noisy, and often not welcome in residential suburbs. In the case of Hanscom, the inevitable friction between the airfield and the four communities around it - Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln - has evolved into mutual mistrust over development and its consequences.

That antagonism is likely to continue since Massport revealed its long-term plans, as called for by an environmental report finalized in 2007 and a status report dated March 2008.

One idea is to build a hotel with 100 to 200 rooms and amenities such as a restaurant with 160 parking spaces and a limited amount of meeting space. Expected to serve metropolitan Boston, Hanscom Field, and visitors to the neighboring Minute Man National Historical Park, the hotel could be built in Hanscom's terminal area on the south side of the field off Route 2A, according to the reports.

Another possibility is an air cargo facility in what is called the East Ramp area to the east of the terminal. The projected 15,000-square-foot building could include an additional 79,600 square feet to accommodate vehicle parking, truck docks, and an aircraft apron, the reports said.

Authority officials said last week that Massport has neither received formal requests from corporations interested in developing the facilities, nor sought out potential developers lately. Previous attempts at development of a hotel and cargo facility died.

The officials said they would not go forward with these developments, included in a potential scenario for 2020, until the economy allows it - judged by a show of interest by an outside business with the ability to pay for it.

However, officials said, Massport would remain poised to take advantage of any opportunity at any time. "To use the economy as an excuse to put everything on hold, I think, probably wouldn't be the most responsible thing for Massport to do," said Massport spokesman Richard Walsh.

To fulfill a more short-term plan for 2010, the authority has had requests from five parties interested in building new general aviation hangars that could service corporate jets, Ennis said.

"As a transportation agency, it's in our interest and the Commonwealth's interest that we provide these facilities for Massachusetts business," he said. "You have the Route 128 corridor with businesses that are national in scope, international in scope. They need aircraft to go back and forth to their customers or offices."

Currently, the most likely prospect is redevelopment of Hangar 24 on the airport's west side - an historic facility that community activists want to preserve. Ennis said Massport is still awaiting definitive proposals and has not signed off on plans.

Corporate Limousine, a company that now uses Hanscom's terminal parking lot, has asked about locating a garage for limousines and town cars on the airfield's north side, Ennis said. Massport also confirmed recently that serious talks are ongoing with a group proposing the air and space museum near the airfield entrance.

Former governor Michael S. Dukakis, an outspoken critic of Hanscom expansion with a long history of battling Massport, said the agency should back off from trying to build a bigger airport.

"It all depends on what the current state administration wants to do," he said.

"There's nothing inevitable about anything. When I was governor, we did not encourage or support additional commercial aviation."

With current concerns about global warming, Dukakis added, "it's crazy" not to consider development of mass transit instead of more air flight.

Connie Paige can be reached at connie_paige@yahoo.com.