A Vancouver-based airport management and development company will spearhead the US$3.6 billion overhaul of New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
Vantage Airport Group heads the LaGuardia Gateway Partners consortium selected May 28 to redevelop the airport’s main terminal in what is one of the city’s largest planned infrastructure projects.
The company, which operates nine airports on three continents, previously managed the US$450 million redevelopment of the Nassau International Airport in the Caribbean.
It declined to discuss details of the consortium’s bid at this time.
Said Rebecca Catley, Vantage’s senior director communications and marketing: “It’s a very complex procurement process with understandably strict parameters that we must adhere to. We will be happy to provide more information about the project as and when we are permitted to do so.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s selection of LaGuardia Gateway Partners for the project to demolish LaGuardia’s dilapidated Central Terminal Building and replace it with a “new world-class facility” is the first phase in its master plan for a 21st century LaGuardia Airport. The new terminal will service roughly 50% of the airport’s passenger volume.
Its construction will be funded via a public-private partnership, one of the largest P3s in the U.S. The private sector will contribute US$2 billion; the port authority will provide US$1 billion for construction and infrastructure.
In addition to Vantage Airport Group, LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP) includes Sweden’s Skanska AB and France’s Meridiam. The consortium will be responsible for designing, building, operating and maintaining the new terminal.
The selection of LGP is the culmination of a multi-year procurement process aimed at overhauling what port authority vice-chairman Scott Rechler called the “stepchild of our region’s airports compared to JFK and Newark International.”
Stewart Steeves, Vantage Airport Group’s CFO and the consortium’s president and CEO, said in a press release that LPG is looking forward “to partnering with the port authority on this significant project for the city and state of New York. … We will develop a world-class facility and bring the level of operational expertise needed to deliver the airport New Yorkers deserve, both during construction and throughout long-term operations.”
Vantage has equity interests in various airports around the world, including a 100% stake in the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ontario, and minority stakes in airports in Cyprus and Montego Bay. It sold its a 65% stake in England's Liverpool John Lennon Airport in 2014. Vantage's airport operations generate roughly $500 million in gross sales annually.
