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The FedEx hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport has been a long time coming.

Children who were in first grade when the project was announced in April 1998 are getting ready to graduate from high school.

Local leaders who have seen it through from the beginning might feel like proud parents of a graduating senior when the new package-sorting facility finally opens Monday, at least on a modest scale.

"It's very gratifying to see this come to conclusion," PTIA Executive Director Ted Johnson said last week.

"I am very excited about the hub opening," Don Kirkman, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, reflected. "It's sort of the realization of a dream but also the product of a lot of hard work by many people."

It was the biggest economic development dream of its era. PTIA won a fierce competition among several airports vying to host FedEx's mid-Atlantic air-cargo hub. The Memphis-based company promised to invest $300 million in the facility and eventually employ as many as 1,500 workers.

More importantly, boosters said, it would drive a transformation of the Triad area's economy.

John D. Kasarda, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler School of Business and an aviation industry expert, outlined this vision based on his concept of an "aerotropolis." In effect, it's an industrial-commercial zone built around the airport and composed of businesses whose commerce and products depend on rapid transportation and precision logistics. The FedEx hub would be a key engine powering this development.

With FedEx, a network of interstate highways and other assets, "We're now going to officially declare ourselves an aerotropolis," said Dan Lynch, president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance. "We can make that claim."

Overcoming opposition

The FedEx announcement in 1998 wasn't met with universal approval. Residents of neighborhoods near the airport, including the Cardinal west of Greensboro and in north High Point, mounted fierce opposition based on noise concerns. Plans called for dozens of FedEx cargo jets to take off and land every night. There also were legal challenges by critics who said the project would damage air and water quality.

It took years to clear the regulatory hurdles and win the battles in court. Johnson admits he was sometimes unsure of the ultimate outcome.

"Yes, there were some moments of doubt," he said.

Noise still will be an issue, he said, although less than first believed. Newer A320 jets "climb higher and faster" than 727s, making less of a noise impact on the ground. Better routing will send flights away from residential areas as much as possible. And the airport will monitor problems. "We will attempt to be a good neighbor," Johnson said.

"I can't say it won't get some people ill, but most people realize this is a job generator. We need jobs."

Long-term impact

The regulatory and legal delays were "disappointing and frustrating," Kirkman said, "particularly as we saw the economy decline."

The Triad's unemployment rate was less than 3 percent in 1998. Now it's more than 10 percent.

FedEx won't help that much with its own employment here. About 160 workers already on site are moving into the new facility. The company says it will add only another 200 people this fall when it starts new package-sorting operations. Lynch believes maximum employment at the hub might eventually total 700 to 800, far short of the 1,500 originally projected. The difference: "enhanced productivity" achieved through FedEx's most sophisticated equipment.

That won't limit its value to the local economy, which depends more than ever on diversification. FedEx is a critical addition to the Triad's "supporting infrastructure," Lynch said. It can play a role in facilitating the development of several industry clusters: logistics and transportation, aviation, advanced manufacturing and life sciences.

The airport itself has been transformed because of the FedEx hub. Its new parallel runway, still under construction, would not have been possible without FedEx.

"It opens up a lot of opportunities for this airport," Johnson said of the runway. "It gives us a lot of capacity. We're talking to two companies now about operations here."

Like a graduation that evokes bittersweet feelings, Monday's opening isn't everything first imagined. It's a milestone rather than a destination.

"Success won't be measured in months but in years and even decades," Kirkman said.

But, after 11 years already, it's a welcome sign of success to come.