City Officials Disgruntled With FAA Decision : Meeting Will Consider Options on Garage in Lindbergh Field Landing Path

Upset by the Federal Aviation Administration’s refusal to deem the Laurel Travel Center a hazard to planes landing at Lindbergh Field, three San Diego officials will meet next week to discuss options, such as reducing the height of the six-story building or removing it completely.

“Because of the building, San Diego’s airport is not as safe as others in the country,” said City Councilman Ron Roberts, who represents District 2. “Just looking at it, I’m uncomfortable. The airport would be a lot safer if the building was not there.”

Although the structure at 1025 W. Laurel St. has caused no accidents, the Air Line Pilots Assn. has described it as “an accident waiting to happen” for jumbo jets landing at Lindbergh Field. They claim pilots in large aircraft have a hard time looking over the building, which is home to a parking garage and a car rental business.

Roberts, whose district includes the airport, said he will meet with San Diego Unified Port District Commissioners Louis Wolfsheimer and William Rick to figure out how to improve the view of pilots who pass over the building to reach the runway.

“I think we would have been satisfied with a stronger statement from the FAA about the building,” Rick said. “To me, the (FAA statement) represents a compromise of the safety of the public that has to use that facility.”

For the Third Time

In July, the FAA completed its third study of the building, which stands 710 feet from the edge of the runway, and concluded for the third time that it did not represent a hazard.

“It is an obstruction,” said John Tompkin, an FAA spokesman in the agency’s San Diego office. “We have studied it, and it is not considered a hazard. If anyone brings any information to us that we have not considered, we would re-study the building.”

The president of Kent Holdings Corp., which owns the building, said he was shocked that a third FAA review did not appease Roberts and Wolfsheimer.

“It’s amazing,” said Samuel J. Kahn, president of the company. “Even after a third review, the city of San Diego and/or the Port District are still concerned about the building.”

Kahn said he and his company are willing to talk to city officials about the building but they have not been contacted. He said he does not know if the company would be willing to sell the building or reduce its height.

“When we built it, we didn’t build it to sell it but to have it as an investment,” he said. “To reduce it would be costly.”

Roberts conceded that he had not talked to Kent Corp. about the building.

“I’d love to meet with them, though,” he added. “Right now, we just have to decide what our options are. But they have a right to conduct business. I don’t look upon them as villains.”

Wolfsheimer said: “One of these days soon somebody’s going to get killed there. Maybe the FAA can stand all those dead bodies at the corner of Laurel Street. I can’t.”

Wolfsheimer said the third FAA review, which suggested that the airport install a sophisticated warning-light system along the runway in November, contradicted the previous two.

“They obviously didn’t want to say they were wrong the first time,” Wolfsheimer said.

Tompkin said the agency did admit it was wrong in a statement issued after the review about the present landing system. He said the call for the new light system came after heeding pilots’ complaints about the present system.

“The statement did not say we were wrong on the study of the building,” he said.