Rosiest Scenario Yet for Economic Benefit to O.C.

A county report released Thursday predicts a commercial airport at El Toro would trigger a sonic boom for the local economy, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and billions in income and tourist dollars.

The analysis was the sunniest ever for the controversial airport proposal, outpacing even a recent report by business boosters, but county officials said their projections were based on realistic assumptions.

“We believe the overall economic impact of the airport, including direct and indirect revenues and job generation, will be good news for cities and for residents in the 21st century,” said El Toro project manager Michael Lapin.

The county’s conclusions, however, were met with instant skepticism and challenges from the plan’s many detractors.

“I think their figures are overly optimistic,” said Meg Waters, spokeswoman for the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, which favors developing the former marine base into homes, offices, parks and cultural sites.

“We’ve already got four struggling airports in the region,” she said. “How can you put in a fifth and expect the picture to be this rosy?”

In Thursday’s report, the county projected that by 2020 the airport would generate 146,100 jobs and pump $9.7 billion into local businesses. Most of the money would come from increased tourism, particularly from international travelers who typically stay longer and spend more, the analysis said.

By comparison, Orange County overall added 143,525 jobs from 1995 through 1998, Chapman University economists have reported.

“This is the highest estimate we’ve seen so far,” said Esmael Adibi, a Chapman economist, on the county’s airport analysis. “It is not an unreasonable estimate given the initial expenditure. In any case, 146,000 is a substantial number of jobs, and these numbers are within the range of other economic impact reports I’ve seen.”

The county estimates that in 2020, El Toro and John Wayne Airport would handle a total of 34.2 million passengers and bring in $507 million.

The report also contends that the El Toro project ultimately would yield other, less quantifiable benefits, from attracting multinational corporations to stimulating international trade to lowering airfares.

But at first, it actually would increase ticket prices, griped county Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who opposes the project.

The $2.8-billion airport would be paid for with publicly backed bonds, revenue from John Wayne Airport and a $3 surcharge on airline tickets for El Toro and John Wayne, the county report explains. John Wayne Airport currently has no ticket fee, called a passenger facility charge.

“The financial independence of the new airport has fallen flat on its face,” Spitzer said. “The buzzword has always been that airports pay for themselves. Well, if we didn’t have John Wayne Airport and the cash cow, the general fund, they couldn’t build El Toro.”

County business leaders have long been divided on the El Toro proposal’s economic proposals.

Disneyland, which was believed to be a key backer of the project, said last month that it doesn’t need the airport to bring more tourists to its theme park.

In a study released earlier this month, nearly two-thirds of 303 executives surveyed by the city of Irvine said an El Toro airport would harm the quality of life that attracts business here. The executives said they worried less about an absence of airport capacity than about an inability to attract skilled workers because of traffic and the lack of affordable housing.

By contrast, an Orange County Business Council study issued almost simultaneously indicated that, in 20 years, a commercial airport at the closed Marine base would generate between $14 billion and $19 billion in economic output.

The study estimated the airport would create 92,700 jobs, 20,000 of them not directly at the airport.