Bloomberg reports the city of London is looking to an example set by Denver in tearing down an airport and putting up homes in its place.
London Mayor Boris Johnson is in favor of building a new airport 50 miles from Heathrow Airport, which is the busiest in Europe, and then using the land that the airport now occupies for 100,000 homes. Denver closed Stapleton International Airport and turned it over to a private developer once Denver International Airport opened in 1995.
The Central Park community is now home to about 15,000 people as well as schools and shops.
“Convincing people to live on a former airport property was not an issue because there was pent-up demand,” Tom Gleason, spokesman for the developer, Forest City Enterprises Inc (now Brookfield Properties),. told Bloomberg. “The day the last airplane took off, property values around Central Park took off as well.”
VIEW BLOOMBERG REPORT – LONDON’S ROYAL BOROUGH OF HEATHROW TO MIMIC DENVER HUB-SWAP+
