Aerotropolis: Are airport cities the wave of the future?

When it opened back in 1995, Denver International Airport drew attention with its tented roof, high-tech (and famously flawed) baggage system, $7 million art collection and its location almost 25 miles northeast of downtown.

The Colorado airport some think is visited regularly by UFOs and space aliens turns 20 this week (Feb. 28), and there's a year-long schedule of celebrations, commemorations, contests, giveaways, pop-up experiences and festivals planned.

DIA officials are also looking forward and have an ambitious plan for the airport's next 20 years.

Included is a renovation of the great hall inside the main terminal, the opening of a 519-room Westin hotel with ballrooms and event space (by November 2015), rail service to downtown (in early 2016), a public plaza and the commercial development of more than 9,000 acres of land to help DIA grow its economic impact in the region.

"We're not talking about a corner of the airport we're going to lease," said DIA CEO Kim Day, "we're talking about a major real estate opportunity," one that DIA hopes will attract big firms also being courted by airports around the world.

"Our competition is Frankfurt, Beijing, Munich, Dallas, Incheon and every airport in the world who similarly has major global connections and who has some development on airport," said Day. "But no one has as much land as we do."

DIA calls its project DEN Real Estate, but elsewhere this sort of development goes by "airport city" or "aerotropolis," a term coined by John Kasarda, director of the Center for Air Commerce at the University of North Carolina, to describe "planned development outward from the airport ... to obtain economically efficient, attractive, sustainable growth."

There are aerotropolis projects underway in Amsterdam, Dubai, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Vancouver, Detroit, Memphis and elsewhere, said Kasarda, and this "development is about making metropolitan areas and their firms more competitive in the globally-networked speed-driven economy."

Recent developments associated with the aerotropolis at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport include a 15.3-acre lease for what will be the world's largest Infiniti automobile dealership and rail connection to Dallas via DART. During 2015, DFW is looking forward to opening the first phase of the airport's first mixed-use development, Southgate Plaza, which will include restaurants, a hotel and the airport's new headquarters building, according to airport spokesman David Magaña.

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is working hard to keep its title of "world's busiest airport," and as part of its efforts to create an airport city is planning a large-scale on-property hotel attached to the domestic terminal. A travel plaza and office space is also part of that plan, said airport spokesman Reese McCranie.

"We have about 34 acres of available acreage, and this would be a huge win for passengers who are looking to fly into Atlanta, have meetings and fly back home," said McCranie.

ATL is also working with local governments and businesses as part of the Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance, which has as its goal the development of the airport vicinity.

A sure sign of success: the first complex to be built in the ATL aerotropolis complex is the 26.4-acre headquarters of Porsche North America. In addition to bringing new jobs to the area, the Porsche campus will also have conference and training centers, a museum and a 1.6-mile test track offering a variety of driving "experiences" to the public.

"[T]here are some excellent examples out there of airports that have evolved to go well beyond their traditional roles," said Angela Gittens, Director General of Airports Council International, the association of airports worldwide. "If anything, the scope of airport city projects has increased over the years with this growing realization that airports are more than just places where planes land and take off."

But not all airports are ready to turn their extra acreage into an aerotropolis.

Miami International Airport was planning to develop a 33-acre airport city, but due to political and economic considerations, the airport is no longer pursuing that option. " [M]ore essential and cost-effective purposes for the land under consideration arose," said MIA spokesman Greg Chin.

Instead of making way for a new hotel and other commercial businesses, MIA has decided to expand its airfield and create 13 more off-gate airplane parking areas, known as hardstands.

Each new hardstand enables at least one additional international flight per day at MIA, and each international daily flight can generate $23 million for the airport, said Chin. So re-purposing the airport land for airplane parking "will generate greater business revenue from airline fees and passenger concession revenues than Airport City, and the same number of new jobs as well."

Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.