Englewood – In the four decades since Centennial Airport opened amid cow pastures and rolling plains, the boom in flights has been eclipsed only by the homes and businesses that surround it.
The nation’s second-busiest private airport in one of the nation’s hottest housing markets creates a double-barreled threat: noise and safety.
Twenty years ago, Centennial was a busy but remote airfield. As development around the airport has soared, so have the calls from neighbors. From 1985 to 2005, noise complaints have increased by 4,844 percent – from 134 to 6,625.
This year, the airport has logged 8,164 noise complaints through August, a pace that could shatter the most ever – 9,583 in 2001.
Some aviation experts say such a high-volume airport is no longer a safe fit for the dense development that surrounds it.
There are an average of 944 daily takeoffs and landings at Centennial Airport – on the edge of the Denver Tech Center and within seconds of an errant jet’s thrust of such emerging communities as Highlands Ranch, Parker, Centennial and Lone Tree, collectively home to hundreds of thousands of people.
“If a plane were to hit an apartment building and a large number of people were killed, that would certainly be a catalyst for concerned citizens to demand the airport be moved,” said Paul Dempsey, director of the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University in Montreal.
Local leaders and Centennial Airport officials, however, say a safe balance can be maintained for the busy airport and the development nearby.
“We’ve taken a more comprehensive approach by creating zones that are very restrictive and very limited to make those areas as safe as possible,” said Douglas County planning director Peter Italiano.
Leads nation in crashes
Centennial Airport handles more takeoffs and landings daily than San Francisco International, JFK in New York City or Reagan National in Washington, D.C.
Centennial also has had 69 crashes at or near the airport in the past 15 years – the most of any airport in the country – including four fatal accidents in the last two years.
In December 2004, there were two fatal crashes in a week, including one that plunged a twin-engine aircraft into First Data Corp.’s parking lot, seven-tenths of a mile southeast of the runway. The crash also was about the same distance away from a townhome complex.
Airport officials, firefighters and neighbors sweat the risks.
“It’s just a matter of time before one of those comes down on us,” Eloise Adams said as she filled her car with gasoline at a station on bustling Arapahoe Road, just blocks from the airport.
At a disaster drill this month, dozens of bodies smeared with fake blood littered a ravine near a broken fuselage, which the airport bought for $10,000 solely for crash-response training.
Rescuers scooped up the bodies and doused flames with a $400,000 piece of foam-spraying equipment that South Metro Fire Rescue purchased for emergency response at the airport.
“Safety is our No. 1 concern, always,” said Centennial Airport director Robert Olislagers, as he watched the evening exercise from the edge of the ravine.
Noise led to Stapleton’s demise
Noise, a constant reminder of people’s proximity to planes, is the daily headache.
In 1985, there were 351,856 flights at Centennial, with 134 noise complaints when there were fewer neighbors. In 2005, there fewer flights, 344,619, but 6,625 calls.
“Safety doesn’t drive out airports; noise does,” Dempsey said.
Noise, after all, led to the closing of Stapleton International Airport, which was surrounded by pastures when it opened in 1929, only to be pushed out by development.
It was replaced a decade ago by Denver International Airport, isolated on the plains at the end of its own highway about 25 miles from downtown Denver. Now, businesses and housing developments are emerging along Peña Boulevard as well.
“Virtually every major airport in the country was in the suburbs when it was built,” said Dempsey, who co-wrote the 1997 book “Lessons Learned: Denver International Airport.”
Just beyond Centennial Airport’s borders, the end of development is nowhere in sight.
At Broncos Parkway and South Jordan Road, where the air-traffic tower perches on the western horizon, cows witnessed trucks, flagmen and construction crews at work in a panorama last week.
Signs at all four corners promise new homes, condos and office space soon to be up for sale. “Land available” signs line four- and six-lane roads that replaced once-rural routes.
“I’m more concerned about dump trucks than airplanes,” parent Jennifer Naylor said of the harried pace of construction nearby, as aircraft rose and descended on the horizon.
Dempsey said local leaders must protect the airport and its neighbors with growth controls. Arapahoe County Commissioner Lynn Myers, however, said those who move into the area bear some responsibility.
“It’s a personal choice,” said Myers, who chairs the airport board. “People need to consider the airport before they buy.”
Launched by DTC founder
Already, careful planning and strict requirements are in place that shield noise and deter accidents, local planners say.
Nothing can be built in the areas immediately beyond runways, and homes and office towers are outside flight patterns. Builders near the airport also must use special insulation to absorb noise and glass that won’t reflect into pilots’ eyes.
Olislagers can’t imagine the airport moving, given the proximity of its corporate clientele. Centennial Airport, after all, was the brainchild of George Wallace, who developed the Denver Tech Center.
The airport now employs 2,000 people, and as of 2003, it accounted for an $816 million economic impact to the region, according to the Colorado Aeronautical Division.
If airport officials, land planners and developers slow development and keep flight paths as clear as possible, there may never be a need to move the airport, Olislagers said.
“The important thing to me is balancing the needs of the airport with the needs and concerns of the community,” he said. “People have a right to live where they want to; we have a right to run an airport.
“And in the twain, we shall meet.”
Researcher Monnie Nilsson contributed to this report.
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
