The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Board of Commissioners approved a proposed lease for The New Terminal One on the south side of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The Port Authority will enter into the lease agreement for The New Terminal One with a consortium of airlines - Lufthansa, Air France, Japan Airlines and Korean Air Lines - and development and financial partners -The Carlyle Group, JLC Infrastructure and the Union Labor Life Insurance Company (Ullico) - for the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the new, sustainably designed and future-focused state-of-the-art terminal as part of the JFK Redevelopment project.
The proposed lease provides for construction of a brand-new international terminal on the site previously occupied by existing Terminals 1 and 2 and an aircraft parking area previously occupied by Terminal 3 at an estimated cost of approximately $7.4 billion. The New Terminal One will open in stages through 2025, with the existing facilities remaining in operation to limit the impact on customers.
“The Port Authority’s board authorization today shows important progress toward the agency’s mission to ensure a 21st century customer experience by transforming our legacy assets into modern gateways,” said Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole. “The New Terminal One is one of the major pillars of the redevelopment of the new JFK and builds on the success of the newly restored TWA hotel which opened earlier this year.”
“This agreement for The New Terminal One moves the Port Authority one step closer to realizing Governor Cuomo’s vision for a unified, modern JFK Airport with world-class passenger amenities,” said Port Authority Vice Chairman Jeffrey Lynford. “We look forward to seeing shovels in the ground on this project and redevelopment projects around JFK next year.”
Governor Cuomo’s Vision for a New JFK
In January 2017 Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced an historic $13 billion plan to transform John F. Kennedy International Airport into a modern 21st century airport anchored by two new world-class international terminal complexes on the airport's north and south sides. This record investment — including $12 billion in private funding — advances the Governor's vision for a unified and interconnected airport system with best-in-class passenger amenities, centralized ground transportation options and vastly improved roadways that collectively will increase the airport's capacity by at least 15 million passengers a year.
The JFK Vision Plan calls for an overhaul of the airport's hodgepodge of eight disparate terminal sites into one unified JFK Airport by demolishing old terminals, utilizing vacant space, and modernizing on-airport infrastructure, while incorporating the latest in passenger amenities and technological innovations. The Vision Plan also calls for increasing the number and size of gates, improving parking availability, an array of airside taxiway improvements to allow for bigger planes and reduced gate congestion, upgrading the AirTrain JFK system to handle increased passenger capacity, and enhanced roadways on and off the airport, particularly the Van Wyck Expressway and the Grand Central Parkway, including the Kew Gardens Interchange.
An early sign of realizing the governor’s vision, in May the TWA Hotel located just outside Terminal 5 opened its doors to the public, creating a thoroughly modern hotel in the historic Eero Saarinen building constructed in 1962. The project created 3,000 construction jobs and roughly 795 hotel jobs. Half of the hotel's employees are from Queens and half of those are from the communities neighboring JFK. Seventy-eight percent of the hotel staff are minorities and 51% are women. The hotel includes 512 guest rooms with views of the entire airport. The hotel incorporates the historic TWA terminal, 50,000 square feet of event space, a 10,000-square-foot observation deck and rooftop pool, and a 10,000 square-foot, state-of-the art fitness facility for guests.
A New World-Class Terminal Anchoring the South Side
The proposed $7.4 billion, 2.8 million square foot new terminal on the airport's south side will replace JFK's Terminal 1 (20 years old and undersized), which the group currently operates, and Terminal 2 (56 years old and functionally obsolete), as well as the area left vacant when Terminal 3 was demolished in 2014. When completed, The New Terminal One will yield a net increase of approximately 2 million square feet from the existing terminals and provide 23 new international gates, 22 of which will be designed to accommodate larger, wide-body aircraft (FAA Airplane Design Group V or VI) such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner or Airbus A380, which provides seating for over 500 passengers.
The design of the new terminal is future-focused and embraces global best practices for sustainability and technology. The New Terminal One will feature existing and emerging technology including: biometrics; automated security and boarding gates; self-service check-in kiosks; automated bag drops; arrival baggage screening; security surveillance with intelligent video analytics; and infrastructure to support Single-Token Identification, the Internet of Things, and the 5G network. Inside and out, the terminal design must meet a LEED Silver minimum, and the plan calls for zero-emissions ground service equipment, customer EV-charging stations, rainwater and de-icing fluid recapture/recycle, low-emissions construction equipment, worker shuttle buses, mass transit incentives, electric vehicle requirements, and renewable energy supply standards.
When complete, the new terminal will contain at least 20 security screening lanes, over 200,000 square feet of retail, dining and other concessions - with 50% of food and beverage venues already reserved for New York and Queens-based businesses, 116,000 square feet of airline lounges, and 55,000 square feet of interior green space, children's play areas and cultural exhibits. The complex will be operated by Reach Airports LLC (a joint venture between Munich Airport International and CAG Holdings) and also be connected to the existing Terminal 4, which initially opened in 2001 and has been expanded twice since then, most recently in 2013.
On-Airport and Off-Airport Roadway Improvements
Outside of the terminal buildings at JFK there is a need to simplify the spaghetti-like roadway system and enable quicker access to all terminals for private cars, taxis, ride-share and other for-hire vehicles, as well as reconfigure parking lots to ensure short-term and long-term options are more easily accessible.
Plans call for the terminal areas to be linked by two main "ring roads," a north loop and a south loop, which will make it easier to enter and exit the airport while providing significantly easier access to the terminal complex areas on the airport's north and south sides.
Off airport, the New York State Department of Transportation has targeted $1.5 billion in highway improvements designed to ease bottlenecks, particularly at the Kew Gardens Interchange with the Van Wyck Expressway and on the notoriously congested Van Wyck as well. The goal is to help reduce travel times for vehicles between midtown Manhattan and the airport.
The Kew Gardens Interchange - originally built in the 1930s - with the Grand Central Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway still contains a series of ramps that do not meet today's standards. Improvements to eliminate bottleneck conditions are expected to be complete by the end of 2022.
On the Van Wyck itself, the 4.3-mile trip between the Kew Gardens Interchange and JFK airport can take more than a half hour during peak times. To improve the situation, the DOT is planning to build a fourth lane in both directions, which would be restricted to passenger vehicles with three or more people and for-hire-vehicles with at least one passenger. The environmental approval process is underway, and construction is slated to finish by the end of 2024.
With respect to mass transit, the Port Authority will be adding 50 percent capacity to the AirTrain JFK system as well as increasing frequency of service to keep up with rising demand. More than 7.6 million paid passengers used the system in 2017, with another 12.6 million more riding it to connect between terminals and access ground transportation. Additionally, at Jamaica Station the Long Island Rail Road is constructing a new, 12-car platform that will increase capacity for those traveling to and from JFK.
Redeveloping JFK Airport in Lockstep with the Local Community
In October 2018, Governor Cuomo created the JFK Redevelopment Community Advisory Council to advance community-focused programs throughout the airport’s redevelopment specifically related to a variety of community benefits including job opportunities, small business outreach and development, education for Queens residents, and environmental stewardship. The Advisory Council is co-chaired by Representative Gregory Meeks and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and is composed of elected officials, community boards, nonprofit organizations, civic organizations and clergy leaders in the targeted communities of Southeast Queens, Southwest Queens, the Rockaways and Western portions of Nassau County.
Since its inception, the Advisory Council has been working with the Port Authority to expand community outreach efforts, ensuring that this ambitious project solicits ongoing feedback from local stakeholders and provides meaningful opportunities for local businesses, Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) and jobseekers. This includes a commitment to the Governor's nation-leading goal of 30 percent utilization of MWBEs, which applies to all aspects of the Redevelopment.
Last month the Advisory Council unveiled the first of a series of initiatives targeting job opportunities, business opportunities, and training and education initiatives to benefit the local communities around JFK Airport: a commitment for The New Terminal One to reserve 50 percent of concessions for New York and Queens local businesses; an initiative to match both construction and airport operations jobs with local Queens residents; a new second chance program to ensure opportunities for formerly incarcerated Queens residents; and a new program brings science and technology to life with an aviation focus for Queens students grades 1-12.
