Temporary Tweed Trailers OK’d

Tweed’s airport management company won city permission to install a handful of new temporary, modular trailer buildings below base flood elevation to allow for expanded check-in, security and catering services at the existing Morris Cove airport.

The permission was granted during Wednesday night’s regular monthly City Plan Commission meeting. Local land-use commissioners unanimously approved Avports LLC’s application for a flood damage prevention ordinance variance to install non-floodproofed temporary modular trailers below the Base Flood Elevation at Tweed New Haven Airport’s ​“west terminal.”

Attorney Joe Williams and Houston-based architect Billy Ferrell explained that these trailers will allow Avports, the Goldmans Sachs-owned airport management company that runs day-to-day operations at Tweed, to follow through on $5 million worth of previously approved improvements to the existing New Haven terminal and administration buildings.

Those buildings are being converted into dedicated departure and arrival buildings respectively to accommodate new, expanded air service provided from Avelo Airlines—all before the airport relocates its operations to a planned new East Haven terminal building in the next few years. Wednesday night’s City Plan Commission approval came one night before the Board of Alders is slated to cast a final vote on a separate, proposed 43-year deal between the city and Tweed’s airport authority that is designed to facilitate that broader, privately funded airport expansion.

“The trailers are intended to be and will be temporary,” Williams promised. The state building inspector will only allow those trailers to be placed around the west terminal for at most 36 months. That means that, regardless of what happens with the planned new East Haven terminal construction, the trailers approved Wednesday night will only remain standing for the next three years at most — and will need another set of approvals if they are to stay longer than that.

Because these trailers are temporary, Williams said, they ​“do not need to satisfy building code requirements for permanent buildings.” Including for buildings placed below the Base Flood Elevation, as these trailers will be.

“The modular trailers will be installed adjacent to the existing Terminal and Administrative Buildings as well as on the aircraft apron,” Avports’ variance application reads. ​“The purpose of these trailers is to relocate portions of the existing operations from the existing buildings. This will allow the combined facility to increase flights. … The temporary expansion will provide time to design and construct a new terminal facility on the east side of the airport.”

Since these trailers are not floodproofed, the application continues, in a flooding event, ​“the structures would be susceptible to being damaged. The trailers will be leased and include conditions to be insured to cover losses or damages.”

Ferrell said that one of the trailers will have a combination hold room and airline office connected by corridor and ramps to the departures building.

There will be a trailer for check-ins for the departures building, a catering trailer to be run by Avelo, and five additional metal shipping containers to be used for storage.

Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand encouraged his colleagues to vote in support of the ordinance so that ​“these temporary structures can be built and put in place.” The temporary, short-term improvements to the airport’s west terminal ​“certainly will help the airport to function better in the near term, which is a laudable goal.”