Airport car rental gets its own garage

News Source: Anchorage Daily News
Publish Date: November 17, 2006

Airport car rental gets its own garage

What: The Anchorage Rental Car Center at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. The four-story, 618,000-square-foot building is to house the cars and operations of all the rental companies operating at the airport and provide some public parking. The center includes 12 car washes and 16 fueling and cleaning stations. A 20,000-square-foot customer service lobby will be connected to the airport terminal by a tunnel. The total project cost, including design, construction, financing and operating reserves, is $62.8 million, said Louise Lazur of the project’s developer, Venture Development Group.

Where: Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Who: Venture Development construction manager Bob O’Neill said the group would build and operate the center. Car rental customers pay fees of about $4 per day, which will buy the building for the state over the next 30 years, O’Neill said.

Eight rental companies will use it, Lazur said. Koonce Pfeffer Bettis is the architect; the general contractor is Neeser Construction Inc. Major subcontractors include Rebar Placement Co., Alaska Professional Construction Inc., Klebs Mechanical Inc., Megawatt Electric and Alaska Quality Fire Protection, said Neeser project manager Neal Bhargava.

Why: The building makes rental companies’ operations more efficient, cutting roughly 400,000 trips off the airport campus to wash and fuel vehicles each year, Lazur said. The center is designed to protect customers from the weather as they travel to and from the airport and make car pickup quicker and smoother. Lazur said the center has room for another 30 years of growth. The rental car companies proposed the project and the airport approved it, said airport director Mort Plumb.

When: The center is to open in June, Lazur said.