Airport News Good Omen for the Future

The announcement that China Cargo Airlines is negotiating to land flights at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is a hopeful sign for the St. Louis construction and real estate industries.

The day before the official announcement of China designating China Cargo Airlines to negotiate with Lambert Airport, Mike Jones, chairman of the Midwest-China Hub Commission told a luncheon meeting of the St. Louis chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women that such a designation is "the key next step" in making St. Louis a cargo hub for Chinese products entering the United States and Latin America.

Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, director of Lambert Airport, said the development of the airport into a cargo hub for the Chinese could trigger construction of logistics centers around the airport and create thousands of jobs. Lambert has 1200 acres of undeveloped land that could be leased for logistics centers, she said.

Hamm-Niebruegge noted that when St. Louis rejected FedEx's overtures to build a secondary hub here 15 years ago, the jilted cargo firm went to Indianapolis. The creation of an air cargo hub there has produced 20,000 cargo-related jobs, she said.

John Langa, vice president, Jones Lang LaSalle, said that FedEx's decision to build a hub in Indianapolis was the trigger that has turned Indianapolis into the best industrial market in the Midwest outside of Chicago. He added that construction of a cargo hub will encourage the construction of factories nearby in addition to logistics centers as manufacturers locate near hubs to keep shipping costs low.

Jones said that the only way to create a cargo hub in St. Louis is with the Chinese, because the cargo business is a mature market in the U.S., leaving the established companies with little reason to build new hubs.

"No amount of money would get a U.S. company to relocate here," Hamm-Niebruegge agreed.

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