By Oliver Clark.
A museum dedicated to newly uncovered ancient Persian sites, an international health village, a logistics base and a sports complex are the key features of an airport city being planned around Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA).
Developed within a 1,500 hectare free trade zone (FTZ), the IKIA Airport City will be a focal point for medical and historical tourism, a base for R&D and high technology manufacture and a conference and exhibition venue, said Dr Seyed G. Shirazian, IKIA Airport City project director.
Speaking during the recent Airport Cities conference and exhibition in Memphis Shirazian said a focus of the project was newly unearthed historical sites found near the airport.
"There is an area we are working on at the moment which we do believe is a city dating back 5,000 years to the Persian Empire" said Shirazian.
The Iranian authorities also hope to attract clean tech, commercial and time sensitive manufacturing companies to the site, while a cargo village will facilitate international trade and provide a "cross roads" between East and West.
Following the recent passing of a law through Iran's Islamic Parliament a 26 hectare special economic zone (SEZ), the airport can now become a centre for foreign investment.
With medical care in Iran costing around 20% of that in Europe and North America, a health village at IKIA will be a big draw for medical tourism from around the world, Shirazian believes.
Disclosing the timeline for development, he said the airport has already begun construction of a second runway, a metro system connecting the airport with Tehran while designs for a new 20mppa capacity second terminal for Hajji pilgrims will be completed in the next 10 months.
The airport city master plan is expected to be completed within six months.
Shirazian said the next stage was to find investors to finance the airport city and related projects through PPPs: "The government is trying to privatize all of these activities in Iran and they are trying to encourage both public and private funding of these infrastructure projects," he said.
So far interest in the project has come from Asia, mainly Korean and Chinese companies, but Shirazian is hoping for wider interest.
"We need a promoter we have just started planning the airport city and airport expansion, its going to take some promotion effort, we are looking to be introduced to investors to discuss these projects," he said.
