Surprise Present at Airport Bash : Aviation: The fun at Riley Terminal party is heightened by forecast of financial boon to county.

More than 2,000 people celebrated the completion of the $63-million Thomas F. Riley Terminal on Friday night with one of the county’s biggest ever black-tie parties. But county dignitaries had another reason to celebrate: A newly released economic study predicted that the expanded John Wayne Airport ultimately will add $1 billion and 10,000 jobs to the county’s economy.

The invitation-only reception, which was scheduled to last well on toward midnight, was held amid thousands of helium-filled balloons and featured a spectacular sound and light show inside the huge, barn-like building. In keeping with the years of construction snafus and cost overruns that have plagued the project, county building-safety officials issued the final occupancy permits only hours before the first guests arrived.

An open house is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, but VIPs and people who worked on the project over the years, from high-ranking public officials to traffic counters, got an advance look at the long-awaited terminal during Friday night’s gala.

“Isn’t this fantastic?” County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, for whom the new terminal is named, asked just before official ceremonies began. “I can’t think of anything more wonderful than this.”

In his formal remarks, Riley stressed the many years it took to forge a compromise with the airport’s neighbors that allowed the expansion program to occur.

“There is no doubt that working cooperatively with the community was the key to bringing John Wayne Airport into the ‘90s,” Riley said.

As people milled throughout the half-mile-long structure, dining on food supplied by local restaurants and hotels, a band called Shades of Jade played salsa. Later, the Saddleback Symphony stirred the crowd with a dramatic rendition of the theme song from the Olympic Games.

Some guests flew into the airport from other cities Friday just to be on hand for the reception.

“I think it’s lovely,” said Maury Clark of Reno. Clark and his wife, Judie, said the new terminal looked “fantastic” as their plane landed on the runway. “It had a wonderful green glow,” said Judie Clark.

“It’s new and modern and roomy,” added Floyd Skor of Mission Viejo.

“It’s hard to believe Orange County has grown up to have something this size,” said Cheryl Becker of San Diego.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said: “It’s great for the public to finally see a major change in transportation. . . . It will change the way the rest of the nation perceives us as a travel destintion.”

Meanwhile, some of the officials attending the festivities were also basking in the results of the economic study that showed how much the $310-million airport expansion program means to the local economy.

The study, an update of the county’s own 1986 airport economic impact report, was done by the same firm that prepared the original report, Economics Research Associates of Los Angeles.

The privately financed update suggests that the overall impact of the airport expansion will be about $200 million more than reported in 1986. But when adjusted for inflation, that figure actually represents a decline.

The impact would have outstripped inflation had AirCal, the Newport Beach-based airline owned by developers William Lyon and George Argyros, not been merged into American Airlines in 1987, a co-author of the report said Friday.

The new report, released Friday night at the VIP preview of the new terminal, was financed by an airport boosters group--the Orange County Aviation Council--to show in 1990 dollars just how valuable the airport is to the county.

“From a marketing standpoint, a modern, effective airport with good service is a positive factor for any company. The new airport will help persuade companies to locate in Orange County, and that is a positive benefit,” said Eugene H. Moriarty, Aviation Council president.

When the airport is operating at its full capacity of 8.4 million passengers a year at the end of the decade, that value--based on estimates of airport-area payrolls, taxes, tourist spending and overall job creation prompted by the presence of a bigger, more modern airport--will hit $1.93 billion, the report said. That is 13% higher than the $1.71-billion impact predicted in the 1986 report.

ERA said in its 1986 report that the pre-expansion airport contributed a total of $1.04 billion a year to the county’s economy, including 13,826 jobs with a combined payroll of $456.2 million.

The $1.93-billion estimated impact for the year 2000 includes 22,530 jobs with a combined payroll of $513.8 million.

Of the total, the report said, $736.2 million a year will be in primary impact from activity directly related to the airport.

The five-page document serves as an addendum to the much more detailed 63-page report prepared four years ago. Inflation has added about 17% to the dollar values in the 1986 report, said Gene Krekorian, an ERA vice president.

That the overall increase in the economic impact estimate didn’t keep up with the inflation rate, Krekorian said, is largely because of the 500 or so jobs lost to the county when American Airlines acquired AirCal.