Fiscal Impacts Of Expanding Philadelphia International Airport

Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) has successfully grown to come close to its current facility capacity - and the city’s aviation planners explored a wide range of solutions, such as expanding the existing airport, building a new airport, converting military air bases to commercial use or expanding regional reliever airports.

The preferred solution, Expansion Alternative C (Midfield Terminal Concept), involves moving the airport’s terminal complex – the majority of which currently sits on City of Philadelphia land – and relocating it on airport acreage in Tinicum Township (Delaware County). This reconfiguration and rebuild proposal would forfeit the city significant revenues from taxable airport economic activities. EDR Group's work involved forecasting airport activity under the “no-build” scenario (capacity constrained) and the Alternative C “build” scenario - and assessing the resulting tax revenue impacts of each.

Because the airport straddles two local jurisdictions, City of Philadelphia and Tinicum Township in Delaware County, Philadelphia, Alternative C has the potential to shift a substantial amount of taxable (in Philadelphia) activity from the City of Philadelphia to Delaware County. To determine the magnitude of the shift, EDR Group projected future employment and taxable revenue streams in 2020 and 2025 for both the no-build scenario and Alternative C.

The City of Philadelphia's Division of Aviation is expected to release its Environmental Impact Statement in late 2007, with a Record of Decision (ROD) to follow soon afterwards.