Recurrent on-time problems and customer griping about poor service notwithstanding, blessings continued flowing from Northwest as it kept adding domestic and international flights at its Metro hub. In September 1996, the airline and county struck a deal to vastly expand the airport. Metro employs 15,000 people, and accounts for another 55,000 spinoff jobs. Private developers, meanwhile, are scrambling to build near Metro, although most plans now exist only on paper. One that is making headway is Vining Park, comprising office space and a business-class hotel on 80 acres north of Interstate 94, said Richard Marsh, economic development director for the city of Romulus.
Work is to begin in the spring.
Apart from office, industrial and retail space, chunks of land near Metro are being eaten up for residential development. Home buyers' desire for access to major freeways makes living near a busy airport more tolerable, he said. Plus, an increasing number of the area home buyers work at the airport. Even more development is in the air at Metro proper. Northwest and Wayne County have tentatively agreed to expand Midfield Terminal's West Concourse beginning in 2009, Northwest Chairman Richard Anderson said.