In the not too distant past a few drab offices and prefabricated warehouses set along the main access road were all a company could expect in terms of a airport business premise - but today it's a very different story with some airports at the cutting edge of business park planning and development.
While the economic value of locating near to an airport with its international connections has long been appreciated, the last 10 years have seen a boom in high quality, self-contained business parks springing up that rival anything found downtown.
It's all part of making an airport a business destination in its own right, and with 64,000sqm of spacious, modern offices and warehouses, the multi-purpose Avioport Logistics Park at Milan Malpensa is a good example.
Nestled in the Italian Ticino national park and boasting several 'turnkey' commercial properties, an integrated road network, loading and manoeuvring bays and even a bar and restaurant, the business park has been so well conceived and executed, its won a national award.
Voted the most innovative business park in Italy last year by the trade group Assologistica Italia, the Avioport has attracted a mixture of Italian and high profile global tenants, such as FedEx, DHL, Agusta Westland and SASCO and its currently being expanded .
So what is the secret of its success? "It's a case of supply and demand," says Frank Morel, director of Real Estate Development at Schiphol Real Estate, a subsidiary of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, which conceived of the Avioport in partnership with local partner Finair in 2003.
"Firstly it has to be built to the right specifications, such as making sure the there is sufficient floor space for the tenants needs, that there is maximum storage areas for goods and plenty of space for manoeuvring trucks.
"Secondly, accessibility is essential, it must be connected to major road networks and within easy reach of the airport. Thirdly, be flexible, we don't offer just one office but four offices that can be sub-divided into 12 units, while warehouses can separated or combined as the need arises," Morel explains.
That Avioport provides good connections is in no doubt. The park is one mile from Malpensa Airport, which offers its clients 170 international connections; the airport is linked by express rail services to downtown Milan, while freight terminals operated by Hupac and Ambrogio are just 10 km away; a good road network links the business park to nearby cities, such as Milan, Turin, Genova, Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza.
The guiding principles behind the Avioport Logistics Park are based on Amsterdam Schiphol's globally applied 'AirportCity' formula.
Put simply, it calls for airports to offer service levels equivalent to a major city, constant investment to offer bigger and better facilities and ensure consistent and well thought out spatial planning.
According to Morel, business parks at Milan, Schiphol and elsewhere are becoming an increasingly lucrative part of Amsterdam Schiphol's business.
Last year, Schiphol Real Estate generated $114 million, representing a 20% profit in its own activities and some 12% of the entire group's profits for 2010.
"If you invest in buildings you are looking at 8-10 years to regain your investment then we begin to make a profit, we invest for the future, this compares with a typical developer who sells off the land within a year or two.
"We look at a 10-15 year timeline, this is part of our non-aeronautical strategy, if you take a 20,000sqm building and a tenant like DHL, you can generate 10% of its value in cash flow, which can then be invested in other airport facilities," explains Morel.
When a former army barracks on 23 hectares of land adjacent to Düsseldorf Airport came on to the market in 2003, the airport operator snapped it up to form the basis of an ambitious project, a self-contained 'airport city'.
Expanding outwards in an arc from the airport terminal, the airport city consists of a set of office blocks and show rooms with a combined lettable floor space of 150,000sqm.
Tenants range from small PR agencies, solicitor's offices, medical specialists to internationally renowned operating companies like Porsche, dairy giant Dannon and Siemens, who relocated their regional branch office to the airport along with 600 employees.
Operarted by Flughafen Düsseldorf Immobilien (FDI), a 100% subsidiary of the airport company, Dusseldorf Airport City is now beginning its second phase of expansion to 230,000sqm based on the demand.
According to Düsseldorf Airport CEO, Christoph Blume, from the start there has been one only objective driving the project. "To establish Düsseldorf International as a renowned business location - this is what we were aiming for and what we, to a great deal, have already achieved. We want to be the 'basis for business," he says.
With some 100,000 companies based in the North Rhine-Westphalia region and a catchment of 18 million people within 100km of the airport, it was felt there was a good opportunity to make this vision a reality.
Right from the planning stage the decision was taken to separate the industrial, blue collar 'grey' businesses to the east side of the airport, while creating a series of high quality office blocks to the west to entice white collar workers and high end companies and by extension charge higher rents.
"All the companies settled in Düsseldorf Airport City have one thing in common: they operate globally. And their customers are international.
Let us take for example the medical specialists based in the business park, they have many patients from all over the world, especially from Arabian countries like the United Arab Emirates," Blum adds.
"We were able with our offer to prevail against numerous other locations and building concepts in the competition initiated by Siemens AG. The lease with Siemens AG was concluded before construction began," says Robert Bambach, the project manager at Hochtief, who was tasked with leasing properties at Düsseldorf Airport City.
While it is still essentially a business park, the development bears many hallmarks of a city or town, green parks and trees, a road network with bus stops, parking and water features, a Maritim Hotel and conference facilities. It's a five-minute walk to the terminal's landside 110 bars, restaurants and shops.
With a background as a city planner for a number of German municipal governments, Blum has plenty of experience managing a project of this size and complexity. It is already producing an annual turnover of €20-30 million, Blum's ultimate goal is to sell the entire site to investors and pension funds for a vast return.
While there a number of benefits associated with creating a business park at an airport, such as the availability of undeveloped land and the lack of restriction associated with residential areas, there are some unique challenges.
"There are indeed a few planning restrictions due to the proximity of the airport. The buildings, for example, may not be higher than 25 metres as this could hinder the landing system.
"Additionally, no technical installations are allowed on the roofs - which have to be flat - as they could hinder radar.
"Finally, only specific trees are allowed in the green areas of Düsseldorf Airport City. Fruit trees, for example, may not be planted in order to avoid attracting birds to the area," explains Blum.
Most downtown property developers would probably be overjoyed if their main obstacle to being granted planning permission for a project was making sure there was not a single fruit tree!
Picture captions:
Image 1: The Malpensa Avioport Business Park
Image 2: The Dusseldorf Airport City
