The 500,000-square-foot office park and 320-room hotel proposed by D’Ambra Construction as an extension of the planned train station at T.F. Green International Airport are designed to draw to Rhode Island national companies that could benefit from a multi-use transportation hub.

“We’re hoping that being in close proximity to the airport will bring in some major … companies,” both for office leases and hotel use, owner Michael D’Ambra Sr. told Providence Business News last week.

D’Ambra’s project – expected to cost more than $200 million – is set to go in front of the Warwick Planning Board on March 12 for master-plan approval later this month.

If approved, it will be connected to the $225.5 million train station, dubbed the Warwick Intermodal Facility. When that facility is completed in 2010, it will offer Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) commuter rail service to Boston and might in the future attract Amtrak service, said Kevin A. Dillon, who in January was named the new director of T.F. Green and president and CEO of the R.I. Airport Corporation (READ MORE).

The Intermodal Facility is only part of T.F. Green’s potential expansion. The other major project, yet to be approved, is an expansion of the main runway. Since 2005, the Federal Aviation Administration has been compiling an Environmental Impact Analysis for several expansion options, said RIAC spokesman Rebecca Pazienza. A draft study is expected to be completed this winter, with a tentative build date of 2012.

Both the Intermodal Facility and the runway expansion would benefit businesses in the Warwick-Providence region, said Janet Raymond of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.

T.F. Green Airport is already one of the state’s important economic drivers, she said. During 2006, Rhode Island’s public airports – there are six – generated $2.1 billion in economic activity. Of that, 93 percent originated through T.F. Green, she said. Through direct and indirect employment, 21,857 jobs are attributable to T.F. Green.

A few years ago, members of the Chamber said overwhelmingly – in a 97-percent affirming vote – that T.F. Green was important to effectively running their businesses. Since that survey, the Chamber has been pushing for runway expansion, Raymond said.

“Basically, what our members have told us is that they support nonstop service to the West Coast and well as nonstop to some international destinations,” she said.

But while the train station doesn’t appear in doubt, the runway expansion isn’t such a cut-and-dried issue.

For Warwick residents, an expanding airport means more noise concerns. As part of the 1998 R.I. Permanent Noise Monitoring Act, the airport corporation has to report quarterly noise statistics, including how many noise complaints were reported each quarter. During the fourth quarter of 2007, all carriers operating out of T.F. Green were at least 98 percent compliant with FAA standards and six individuals filed a total of 27 complaints, according to the recent report.

And Mayor Scott Avedisian said he sees the airport as a strong economic driver for local business, but noted that any runway expansion – either south across Main Street or north across Airport Road – would require the FAA to take about 100 homes.

The longer of the two T.F. Green runways is now 7,166 feet and Avedisian said that expanding it by about 1,500 feet toward the north, crossing Airport Road, might not be entirely necessary. That proposal also would require extending Route 37 eastward beyond Post Road, he said.

For T.F. Green, attracting that coast-to-coast service and nonstop service to some international markets is equally important, said Dillon. Extending the runway would allow for such service, he said.

“We’re trying to develop infrastructure that allows us to handle not only short- and medium-haul traffic, but long-haul traffic as well,” he said. “That’s a process that we’re in right now – determining the particular runway length here that would allow us to accomplish that.”

Many of the carriers that fly out of T.F. Green and similar regional airports have shifted their flight models to using regional hub airports instead of offering nonstop coast-to-coast flights, the airport corporation said in its financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30. But the airline handling the most T.F. Green passengers – Southwest Airlines Co., with a 54-percent local market share in January 2008 (READ MORE) – is the “notable exception.”

Dillon has expertise with runway extensions. As director of New Hampshire’s Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, he oversaw the expansion of that airport’s runway between 2003 and 2004.

Although Manchester-Boston accommodates fewer travelers each year – 4.3 million to Providence’s 5.7 million, during 2005 – the airport is about 400 acres larger than the 1,111-acre T.F. Green. Each has two runways (Logan International Airport in Boston has five), and Manchester’s longer runway is now 9,250 feet, about 550 feet longer than the most recent proposal for T.F. Green.

“A lot of the things that Manchester has undertaken and completed, T.F. Green is now looking to accomplish,” Dillon said in an interview last week. “I think that [extension] really gives Manchester the ability to effectively and efficiently handle the expected growth.”

Last year, the FAA’s New England office compiled a report, “The New England Regional Airport System Plan,” that describes current-use patterns and projects growth patterns for each airport in the region through 2020. It identifies the expansion of T.F. Green’s runway as one of the key “efforts to enhance performance” in the region.

New England now annually handles 43 million air-travel trips, but by 2020 it will handle 75 million trips, said J. Brian O’Neill, deputy director of the Manchester-Boston Airport. At T.F. Green, 8.9 million passengers are expected to use the airport annually by 2020.

“And the [FAA] study shows that the two most important regional airports for the future are going to be Manchester and Providence,” O’Neill said. “They are going to need to assume a more important and larger role.”

In anticipation of that growth, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation began a four-year construction project last year on an expressway directly between Interstate 93 and Manchester-Boston. O’Neill said bringing MBTA access is also now one of that airport’s major transportation concerns, but its effort is years behind T.F. Green’s.

For T.F. Green’s Intermodal Facility, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held last fall and construction is expected to begin this spring, Avedisian said.

The project will include a “People Mover” – a glass-enclosed moving sidewalk that will carry passengers the 1,250 feet between rail and air terminals – as well as a bus hub, a 1,000-car commuter rail parking garage and a consolidated rental-car facility with rental booths and 2,200 parking spots for rentals. (READ MORE) It is being funded by a Federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act bond, federal highway grants, and state and city funds.

Raymond, of the Chamber, said “there will be a significant economic benefit.”

As for the runway debate, D’Ambra insisted that he hasn’t followed it closely. He acknowledged that an expanded runway could make it easier to lease his office space, but said the runway issue won’t deter his development.

“We’re going forward either way, regardless of whether it happens or not,” D’Ambra said. •

The R.I. Airport Corporation (RIAC) is a quasi-public organization, based at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, that oversees Green and the state’s five general aviation airports. Additional information is available at www.pvdairport.com.