There’s a city within a city in northeast Calgary. Like the big city it’s part of, Calgary International Airport is always growing and changing.

“Airport development is incremental,” says Bob Schmitt, vice-president of airport development for the Calgary Airport Authority. “As commerce and business develop, the airport has to expand to stay in touch.”

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Construction is under way on Terminals C and D at Calgary International Airport.

As a result, the airport does 50 to 60 construction projects of various sizes per year. It’s currently adding a new pier at the north end of the terminal and expanding the parking structure, for example – and that’s just part of the list.

Development is based on demand. Traffic has grown 80 per cent since the local airport authority took over running the facility from the federal government in 1992. The airport is growing faster than was predicted five or six years ago, says Schmitt.

The original design team deserves credit for it’s work, because the 1977 airport building was sufficient until about 1997.

Unlike a lot of infrastructure in Canada, airport improvements are not funded by the federal government. Airport authorities across the nation have to pay for infrastructure work with no cash from Ottawa. That is why airport improvement fees are levied, Schmitt notes.

Calgary International set the national standard in collecting those fees. Calgary International completed an airport master plan in 1996 that involved the airlines in construction plans. Officials didn’t want to collect the improvement fee, but focus groups showed users wanted the levy hidden in the ticket price.

After six months of talks, carriers began collecting the fee – now at $12 – as part of the ticket price. That means travellers leaving Calgary don’t have the fee-collection lineups that they face in some other cities.

Every year, Schmitt takes the airport development plan back to the air carriers for an endorsement. The master plan is updated every five years and airport officials are in the midst of another revise for this fall.

The airport improvement fee goes entirely towards improvement, he stresses. The airport authority pays about $22 million a year to the federal government for rent, but that comes from parking fees, landing fees, concession payments and so on. It’s self-sufficient in operating revenue. As a not-for-profit corporation, the airport takes in what it puts out, says Schmitt.

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Calgary residential landlord company Boardwalk Equities Inc. has added the former president of Oxford Properties to its board of directors and named a new chairman of the board.

Jon E. Love joins the board of Boardwalk (BEI:TSE; BEI-NYSE) with more than 20 years of real estate experience, including nearly a decade as CEO of Oxford Properties Group from 1992 to 2001. Oxford was a leading manager of high-end office properties, with a portfolio of more than 60 million sq. ft., before being sold last fall to OMERS, a leading pension plan.

Paul J. Hill, a Boardwalk board member for several years, becomes chairman. He replaces Sam Kolias, who remains president and CEO. Hill is president of the Hill Companies and Harvard Developments Inc. and has 26 years of real estate experience and seven years investment banking experience. He is also a director of several other public and private companies.