Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : $340-Million Expansion Plan Unveiled for John Wayne Airport
A new $340-million expansion plan for John Wayne Airport--including a passenger terminal near the San Diego Freeway--was unveiled last week at a meeting of the Orange County Airport Commission.
The plan, priced $55.8 million higher than an estimate two years ago, calls for new exit ramps to carry traffic directly between the terminal complex and the Costa Mesa Freeway, a two-level underground parking garage and $18 million worth of street widening and improvements around the airport.
The proposed terminal, scheduled to open in April, 1990, would serve 8.4 million passengers annually and include 8,400 parking spaces. Earlier plans had called for 20% more parking at a terminal designed to accommodate 10.24 million passengers a year, all in a 100-foot-tall, half-mile-long building.
But an out-of-court settlement between the county and the City of Newport Beach, reached last year, forced the expansion plan to be scaled down. Newport Beach had claimed that the more ambitious expansion could harm the area’s environment.
Members of the Airport Commission and the Board of Supervisors are scheduled to select a final design by January.
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