JWA to create jobs

The expansion of John Wayne Airport will bring in roughly $1.9 billion over the next three years, creating as many as 6,500 jobs and a wave of construction workers and engineers who will likely spend their money here, said Wallace Walrod, vice president of economic development and research for the Orange County Business Council.

“Economic development here is a huge deal,” he said in an interview Friday. “Obviously, the economy is going through a rough time. Unemployment in Orange County is at 10%. Investments like this are a tried and true way of creating jobs — in the near term and over the long haul.”

Walrod’s comments come on the heels of a Business Council report in late March that shows the positive economic impacts of the expansion, which has been met with opposition by many residents who live near the airport or under the flight path of commercial jets.

The airport is in the midst of a $543-million project, which will add a new 28,000-square-foot terminal and 2,200 new parking spaces.

Existing terminals will be upgraded and a pair of new terminals for private jets will be added, Walrod said.

He said the direct employment of construction workers will add millions of dollars to the sagging local economy.

“It provides people with the income necessary to go out to dinner, to go to the movies, to buy a house and to buy a car,” he said. “This is exactly the thing that’s going to turn our economy around — large infrastructure investments.”

Walrod said the Business Council studied the issue for three months before determining that the expansion would be positive to the economy.

“We know that passenger demand is going to grow,” he said. “We’ll get our economy growing again as well.”

Others, however, are not convinced.

In mid-March, former mayors of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach wrote the current mayors and city managers, asking them to oppose any future expansion plans by the airport.

“Today 504 acres; tomorrow how many?” wrote Joe Erickson and Clarence J. Turner.