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Under the revised schedule, the earliest the expansion would open is the fall of 2011.

By ELBERT AULL, Staff Writer October 15, 2008

Add a $60 million expansion at Maine's largest airport to the list of projects to be delayed in the midst of the ongoing economic crisis.

Officials at the Portland International Jetport have pushed back plans to build a four-story addition to the airport's terminal by a year, citing the same uncertainty in the bond markets that recently stalled several transportation projects statewide.

Work on the 160,000-square-foot addition, originally scheduled to begin in the spring, has been delayed until the spring of 2010, said Paul Bradbury, the airport's director.

"The design will basically sit on the shelf for a year," Bradbury said Tuesday.

Word of the delay comes a little more than two weeks after the state could not float a $50 million bond to pay for highway projects in eight counties amid a worldwide financial crisis that iced the lending market.

Workers currently are putting the finishing touches on another upgrade at the Jetport: a five-story parking garage with spaces for nearly 1,000 vehicles.

Airport officials announced the terminal expansion last year and initially planned to have the project finished by October 2010. The earliest the expanded terminal would open under the revised schedule would be the fall of 2011.

The effort to get city and state permits for the expansion, however, is moving forward.

Planning Board members got their first look at the project during a workshop session Tuesday afternoon at City Hall.

The renovated terminal will stand four stories tall, add five gates and double the size of the current building. It will be connected by a walkway to the new parking garage, which should be ready for partial occupancy by the Thanksgiving holiday.

The parking garage and terminal projects will cost more than $80 million combined. Bonds for the projects will be repaid with airport revenues, Bradbury said.

He said the expansion will accommodate projected growth at the airport through 2015.

The jetport served about 1.75 million customers in the fiscal year that ended in June. That number is expected to increase to about 2.2 million annually and then level off, Bradbury said.

Planning Board members have not scheduled a public hearing on the airport expansion. They took up a number of other projects Tuesday:

• Board members, by a 6-0 vote with Lee Lowry absent, recommended that the City Council amend Portland's land-use code to make way for a towering piece of public art dedicated to marine terminal operator Paul D. Merrill, who died in 2007.

The Aaron T. Stephan piece, titled "Boom," is a star-shaped collection of intersecting industrial crane booms mounted on a steel or concrete pole that will stand more than 60 feet high.

Zoning restrictions in the area cap building heights at 45 feet, but board members recommended an exception for public art outside of residential areas. The art for Merrill will stand on a patch of public land near Veterans Memorial Bridge.

• The board held a workshop on a proposal to put a 14,000-square-foot Walgreens with a drive-through window at the corner of Allen and Washington avenues.

The Richmond Co. would raze a cluster of vacant buildings to make way for the pharmacy.

Neighborhood residents said they support the project because it would rid the area of the buildings, which have become an eyesore.

Planning Board members have questions about whether the pharmacy, as proposed, would add to traffic problems at the busy intersection. They have not scheduled a public hearing on the proposal.

Staff Writer Elbert Aull can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:

eaull@pressherald.com