JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT : A New Age : $310-Million Airport Expansion to Propel County Into Aviation’s Fast Lanes With More Daily Flights, a Wider Selection of Destinations and Double the Number of Passengers

Bob Ward had heard a lot about the wealth and high-tech opulence of Orange County. So the 45-year-old Seattle businessman was a bit taken aback when he landed at John Wayne Airport recently, only to discover “the kind of airport you’d find in Hawaii 20 years ago--on the outlying islands.”

A few yards away, across a crowded, dusty, concrete-floored baggage terminal with a one-line-fits-all conveyor belt, a poster advised: “Hang in there! Our new terminal is under construction!”

Through years of lawsuits, design snafus and cost overruns, that promise taunted harried travelers like so much idle talk. But this week, as community leaders formally inaugurate a prominent pathway to the skies to match their growing economic muscle, the poster can finally come down.

Sixty-seven years after Eddie Martin, the late aviation pioneer, first offered $5 joy rides from a vacant Irvine Ranch lot, the county is getting a virtually rebuilt, $310-million airport--to the excitement of many, to the relief of some and to the frustration of others.

Public use of the cramped, 23-year-old Edward J. “Eddie” Martin Terminal ceases late on the night of Sept. 15, replaced the following morning by a cavernous, $62-million, domed passenger hall--the Thomas F. Riley Terminal--that is 12 times as big.

The old open-air parking lot, enclosed in a chain-link fence, has given way to twin, multilevel garages flanking the new terminal, plus a third garage in front that stretches half a mile--the longest parking garage in North America, the county’s project managers say.

The rickety, portable stairs that passengers climbed to their planes have been scrapped in favor of $3 million worth of modern “jetways,” covered loading bridges that telescope from the new terminal’s 14 gates directly to the aircraft.

And the former cuisine offered at a single, tiny snack shop and restaurant has been swapped for McDonald’s french fries, Pizza Hut pan pizzas, chocolate truffles, croissants and a bevy of other foodstuffs at new restaurants. Down to the most mundane of details--the automated urinals in the men’s room, for instance, which flush themselves when the user walks away--the biggest public works project in county history smacks of modernization.

Even the Duke, the airport namesake himself, could not escape the county’s headlong rush into the 21st Century. The John Wayne statue, once a uniform copper tint, has been colorized a la Ted Turner films--replete with a rusty red shirt, a black bandanna, dark khaki pants and dark gray cowboy hat--for its move indoors to the new terminal.

But once the freshness wears off, what’s left? More daily flights and a wider selection of destinations? Almost certainly. Lower fares? Probably not. More noise? Residents fear so.

Seen by some travel agents as a “boutique” airport because of its high use for business travel, John Wayne has long had consistently higher fares than other Southland airports. Even though the new terminal will see a near-doubling of the annual limit on fliers to 8.4 million and a marked increase in daily flights to about 160, it will not prompt any real closure of that price gap, according to airline officials.

What it will mean, instead, industry officials predict, is a new-found respect for Orange County in the eyes of travelers whose first glance of the area until now had been an eyesore.

As a symbol of the county’s swift progress, the new airport “gives us a whole different dimension,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said. “L.A. will have to sit up and take notice. . . . What the Performing Arts Center did for Orange County in that realm, this will do for commerce.”

Added Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, for whom the new terminal is named: “For visitors, the new terminal is a great introduction to the county’s cultural and economic status. I think it will be the most exciting airport--maybe in the whole world. It’s the state of the art.”

But the airport has not come without a heavy toll--financial and otherwise.

If the new terminal’s grand opening is a milestone in the development of a county once thought of as a quiet refuge from Los Angeles, some county leaders say it is also a test of how far local residents are willing to let that development go.

The new facility marks what Ken Delino, a Newport Beach city official active in airport debates over the years, called “the culmination of the great compromise.”

For years, the county found itself caught in the middle of a tense battle between residents who sought to halt the airport’s growth around them and airlines that saw a burgeoning market and wanted a bigger piece of it.

Under terms of a 1985 court settlement in which Newport Beach accepted the current expansion in exchange for a limit on future airport growth, John Wayne remains one of the most tightly regulated airports in the country, with restrictions on noise, flights, aircraft use and nighttime flying. Even so, Central County residents who live in the airport’s shadow are worried about the price of progress.

Take Ed Hall, for instance.

A former small-plane flier, he believes the county “owes it to its young people to make the airport usable. That’s a must. . . . It’s a damn shame that a county as wealthy as ours should make people go out in the rain to board an airplane.”

But at the same time, as founder of Concerned Homeowners of Sherwood Estates, a Santa Ana Heights neighborhood immediately to the west of the airport, Hall fears that the new terminal--current restrictions notwithstanding--will inevitably mean bigger and noisier planes, as air carriers seek profitable direct routes to Hawaii and the East Coast, which are expected in a year or two.

“It’s going to mean more aircraft, more jet planes, more curfew infractions, more traffic in and out of there, more everything,” said Hall, 64. “As it is now, whenever one takes off, you can’t talk on the telephone or listen to your favorite program, and it’s bound to get worse.”

Residents aren’t the only worried ones.

Despite denials from airport officials, private, non-commercial fliers--who have a thousand aircraft and account for about 80% of John Wayne’s takeoffs and landings--predict that they may be squeezed out of operations as the demand for commercial air carrier space soars.

“The biggest overall problem I have with the project,” said Rol Murrow, a western representative for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn., “is that John Wayne wasn’t designed to be a major hub carrier terminal. . . . We’re looking at a system overload there.”

Indeed, airport officials acknowledge that, under the cap on annual fliers imposed by the 1985 case, even the new terminal could soon be overtaxed--if not shortly after its opening, then almost certainly within a few years. It will not end the need for a regional airport to serve Orange-Riverside-San Diego counties, they say.

But the regional airport concept has been stalled by political battles, with no resolution in sight.

Airport officials are happy just to get the new terminal completed at John Wayne. It was scheduled to open on April Fool’s Day, 1990--more than five months ago. But according to an Orange County Grand Jury report, design problems and sloppy oversight fouled that target, costing the county $5.6 million in lost revenue.

Along the way, the project’s lead architect was fined $775,000 for turning in late and inaccurate drawings. Taylor Woodrow Construction California was fired from its role as prime contractor for the parking garage, sparking a round of legal warfare. A steelworkers’ strike temporarily halted construction.

And overly optimistic budget projections forced designers to cut some luxuries, including several skylights and an expensive, wall-to-wall marble floor, now partly carpeted.

Even some of the small features went awry. The March, 1989, dedication of the new southwest parking garage, for example, got off to an inauspicious start when dignitaries hit the “take ticket” button on their new yellow dispenser--and nothing happened.

But negative publicity and frustrations surrounding the airport now seem far behind, officials said optimistically.

“Nothing proceeds 100% smoothly,” reasoned Jack Keady, western marketing manager for American Airlines, the biggest commercial flier at John Wayne. “At this point, we’re simply glad that it’s opening--period.”

And Eugene Moriarty, president of the Orange County Aviation Council, a private airport support group, promised: “When this place opens and it’s new and it’s beautiful, everybody forgets all that stuff, as long as their bags are waiting for them when they get back from Chicago.”

AIRPORT EXPANSION BY THE NUMBERS

OPENING: Sept. 16, after an open house Sept.7-8. SIZE: 337,900 square feet, or 12 times the space in the 29,000 square-foot facility built in 1967 and last expanded in 1982. PASSENGERS: Up to 8.4 million passengers per year compared to the 1967 structure, built to handle 400,000 passengers per year but now serving 4.75-million--more than 10 times the original design capacity. TERMINAL COST: About $62 million, subject to adjustments once all bills are settled, compared to $705,000 for the 1967 facility. IMPROVEMENTS: Total $310 million for the county’s biggest-ever public works project. Includes new parking garages, aircraft aprons and taxiways, neighborhood street improvements such as the widening of Campus Drive, landscaping, new freeway ramps to and from the Costa Mesa (55), Freeway and a two-level internal roadway system. GATES: 14, all equipped with loading bridges, compared to four gates in the old facility, which have no loading bridges. DEPARTURES: Average number of daily airline departures are expected to soar from about 90 now to more than 160 after Sept. 16. DESTINATIONS: Nine major air carriers and their commuter carrier affiliates now provide non-stop service to 21 destinations.

A 10th carrier--serving Chicago--is due in October. But in a year or two, nonstops are expected to Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and possibly New York and Boston. Hawaii will be possible, but only if Federal Aviation Authority permits transoceanic flights by Boeing 767s, which have only two of the three engines required for such service. NOISE: Overall, noise volume will be about the same as it is now, only heard more often due to the increase in takeoffs and landings. There will be increased use of quieter jets such as the BAE-146. But added to the current 55 noise-restricted daily departures on opening day will be 18 more departures of jets noisy enough to be restricted under airport rules. In the future, new-generation aircraft such as the Boeing 767, larger and noisier than the BAE-146, will be used on some of the 73 noise-restricted departures. PARKING: Four new parking structures accommodate 8,400 cars, the maximum allowed under a 1985 court settlement that restricts the airport’s growth until the year 2005. Previously, there were 4,076 spaces. Rates for new garages are $14 a day for the first two days and then $7 a day thereafter, compared to current $12 daily rate. The current hourly rate of $1 will remain the same. The existing, $6-a-day long-term lot on Main Street, across the San Diego Freeway from the airport, will be closed unless needed.

AIRPORT EXPANSION PROJECT BUDGET Figures in millions of dollars.

Parking Structure: $86.3 (27.83%)

Terminal Building: $60.9 (19.64%)

Other Projects: $41.3 (13.32%)

Airfield Area: $35.3 (11.38%)

Freeway Access: $32.6 (10.51%)

On-site Roadways: $24.3 (7.84%)

Terminal Equipment: $10.6 (3.42%)

Site: $10.3 (3.2%)

Off-site Roadways: $8.5 (2.74%)

Total: $310 million

AIRPORT PROJECT FUNDING

Figures in millions of dollars.

1987 Bond Sale: $166.3 (53.65%)

General Airport Revenues: $73.9 (23.84%)

Interest Earnings: $33.6 (10.84%)

Airport Trust Fund**: $27.2 (8.77%)

Reimbursements*: $9.0 (2.9%)

*Reimbursements from airlines, vendors, etc. for various construction items. **Collected from consumers via federal ticket and aircraft fuel surcharges, etc.

Source: John Wayne Airport Compiled by JEFFREY A. PERLMAN FO COLOR, The cavernous Thomas F. Riley Terminal, above, which is 12 times the size of the old one, is fronted by walls of reflective glass. . .