Iattended the NVAR annual Economic summit yesterday. Transportation, airports and real estate -- all tied together to give you a sense of direction where the real estate market is heading in the long run. Presenters for this year's summit, includes "heavy weights" like Virginia Sec. of Transportation, Pierce Homer; James Bennet (CEO Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority); Curtis Hoffman (Sr. Manager Fairfax EDA); the famous Dr. Stephen Fuller from Center for Regional Analysis - GMU; and Dr. Michael Fratantoni (Sr. Director for MBA).
Sec. Homer speaks about transportation planning for Virginia by way of VDOT and the challenges. N.Va is adding population equivalent of two (2) City of Manassas every year. With population growing at twice the size of City of Manassas, we're not adding infrastructure as fast as the population grows. One of the biggest infrastructure investments for the State of Virginia will be Dulles Rail. Apparently, Dulles Silver Line was planned 30 years ago. The forward looking planning was to have rail system from the city to the airport. It was planned that the rail system would run on the ground that FAA purchased for this purpose many, many years ago.
The other big challenges facing transportation besides funding, is the land use decision made by the Army to move 20,000+ employees from Pentagon corridor to Fort Belvoir. The move would create a transportation nightmare if there's no adequate infrastructure in place to support it. Unlike Pentagon corridor with its easy access to transportation, Ft. Belvoir do not have direct transportation access. The nearest Metro (not walking distance) is Franconia-Springfield station.
Speaking of VDOT, you want to check whether your road is on the planning? Check this site out -- VDOT Dashboard, where you can check the what construction project is coming up, where the funding is coming from and expected completion date.
James Bennet, CEO of Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, the agency that supervises the two airports, Reagan and Dulles, speaks about the importance of aviation transportation. He says that "Reagan Airport was opened in 1941 and Dulles in 1962 -- the last time Dulles had been updated and maintained. If you look at the number of passengers flow coming and going through the airport -- it is amazing. In 2005, the airport serves 45 million passengers, of which about 70 percent of the passengers don't live in Metropolitan Washington area. People actually come to Washington DC to fly out of Dulles airport. Now that Independence is out, Southwest is in. It will be interesting to see how Southwest's presence would pressure full-service airlines to match their prices.
- Dulles is the fourth largest transatlantic gateway in the U.S. The other three - Kennedy, Newark and O'Hare.
- Dulles is the sixth largest International airport behind Kennedy, Newark, O'Hare, SF, LA.
So, now to keep up with maintenance and upgrade, the Authority is investing $4 billion for airport reconstruction projects, $1.3 billion for underground train and recent real estate acquisitions West of the airport (on Route 606) for a fourth runway. The fourth runway will help cope with access, reduce delays and anticipate future growth.
This link is going to be big for Dulles -- if selected as the only U.S. city airport to have nonstop daily flights to Beijing! To be selected Dulles competes with three other airports, Dallas, Newark and Detroit. The upside potential is when Dulles "in" -- according to information from the site, "a Beijing flight through Dulles would serve almost about 30% of the total US-China travel market". Wow. That IS a big market. The Fed only allows one U.S. city to have nonstop daily flights to Beijing. Think about the affect of tourism dollars for the local economy. Here is what you can do to help. Click here to help Washington Dulles airport win the contest.
When you look at the big picture with the coming of Silver Line rail, Dulles Airport capital improvement projects, you can see how it will benefit the local economy. More businesses will come to do business in N.Va because of closeness to major airports and access to pool of ready workers. The more business come here, the better it is for the job market, local economy.. and housing market.
image: MWAA
