A new airport at Lake Calumet would be prohibitively expensive to build and unattractive to the airlines, say Lake Calumet opponents, who contended on Wednesday they may finally have found a reason for Mayor Richard Daley`s surprising abandonment of the site.
The foes cited data in an independent consultant`s report showing that a Lake Calumet field could face a funding gap of up to $2 billion, while airlines operating at the facility could incur operating costs of more than $20 per passenger, more than double what carriers typically pay now.
But Illinois Transportation Secretary Kirk Brown said the damning figures represent just one of many financial scenarios. Other projections, which use different assumptions about such things as passenger volume and the construction schedule, suggest that Lake Calumet is feasible, he said.
”Nothing in (the study) says Lake Calumet can`t be financed,” Brown declared.
Meanwhile, Gov. Jim Edgar asserted that the city site remains ”the most viable” for a new regional field. He expressed hope that Daley would let Lake Calumet be reconsidered by the General Assembly when legislators meet again in the fall veto session.
Daley pulled the plug on Lake Calumet in late June, complaining that Edgar failed to muster the necessary Republican support for the project during the legislature`s spring session.
The financial feasibility figures are contained in a draft report dated April 6, 1992.
They were compiled by a consulting team headed by TAMS Consultants Inc., a firm hired by a bi-state site selection committee that in February chose Lake Calumet from among five finalists for the highly sought project.
A spokesman for the Third Airport Alliance, an umbrella group pushing for construction of the airport at a rural site, said the potential funding gap and the high operating cost to the airlines ”would seem to be the final nail in the coffin” for Daley`s parcel.
”If there was any lingering doubt that Lake Calumet was a viable option for a regional airport, this should do away with it,” said Mike Robinson, the spokesman.
A $2 billion gap between Lake Calumet`s $10.8 billion cost and the funds available for construction means that more money would have to be found for the project, either from the state or some other source, said Illinois Sen. Aldo DeAngelis (R-Olympia Fields), a Lake Calumet opponent and member of the site selection committee.
Without devising a way to fill the void, ”I think it would be almost impossible to get financing,” he said.
”Nobody is going to lend you money when they know a big chunk of the cost is not covered.”
”The city`s position is that there is no construction fund deficit,”
responded Robert Repel, Daley`s chief aide on the airport issue.
TAMS` various financial projections were ”very, very complex,” dealing with such variables as the timetable for ”drawing down” money during the project`s construction, interest rates and debt service and the number of people using the airport, Repel said.
The figures seized on by Lake Calumet`s opponents simply represent a worst-case scenario, he said.
Edgar, Daley and Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh, who also supports Lake Calumet, as well as their financial advisers, concluded that the site ”could be built without state money,” Repel said.
Lake Calumet foes have charged the study has been kept in draft form, and thus kept from public release, to avoid political opposition in Springfield. But Brown denied that, saying the final version was delayed only because city, state and Indiana officials were too preoccupied with other airport-related matters to approve a finished product.
The final TAMS report will be completed and released around Sept. 1, Brown said.
The Tribune obtained a portion of the draft.
Repel said Daley ”was not even privy” to the draft`s projections when he decided to remove his site from contention.
”The mayor decided that we were not going to move forward with the project because of the governor`s failure to deliver the votes of the Republican members in the Senate,” Repel said. ”That is the only reason.”
Nonetheless, DeAngelis asserted that Lake Calumet could ”become an aviation Lazarus,” rising from the dead for reconsideration.
Meanwhile, supporters of three rural sites that had been among finalists for the project hailed projections in the study indicating a new airport at Peotone, one of the contenders, would be financially feasible.
One estimate indicates that an airport could be built there with no funding gap and an average cost per passenger of only $9.37, a figure roughly equal to what the airlines pay today.
The cost per passenger takes into account expenses such as landing fees, terminal rentals, employee wages and other airline expenses.
But Brown said the Peotone projection assumes at least $1 billion in federal funding, and U.S. officials have said no Chicago-area airport will get money without ”regional consensus.”
Construction at a rural site appears impossible because officials of both Chicago and Indiana have said they will not support a project there, Edgar said.
”I hope the mayor will reconsider and support his original plan for Lake Calumet,” he said. ”When you look at the alternatives, there really aren`t any.”
