Consolidated Facilities Planned for Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, Anchorage Airports

Officials at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport moved ahead with plans for a consolidated rental car facility, or ConRAC, The Cincinnati Post reports.

The Kenton County Airport Board, which manages the airport, awarded a contract worth $40,000 to the John F. Brown Co. to advise the staff during concept development for the project, as well as during negotiations with the rental car companies at the airport.

The rental car companies will share the facility as well as a common shuttle bus from the terminal to the ConRAC, instead of using their own buses, as they do now.

The board already has awarded a $61,000 contract to Parsons Brinckerhoff of Ohio to draw up the plans for the new center, according to The Cincinnati Post.

In Alaska, the four-story, 618,000-square-foot Anchorage Rental Car Center at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is under construction and set to open in June.

The building will house the cars and operations of all the rental companies operating at the airport and provide some public parking, according to Anchorage Daily News.

The center includes 12 car washes and 16 fueling and cleaning stations to be used by the facility’s eight rental companies. A 20,000-square-foot customer service lobby will be connected to the airport terminal by a tunnel.

The total project cost, including design, construction, financing and operating reserves, is $62.8 million, according to developer Venture Development Group, which will build and operate the center. Car rental customers pay fees of about $4 per day, which will buy the building for the state over the next 30 years, Anchorage Daily News reports.

The building makes rental companies' operations more efficient, cutting roughly 400,000 trips off the airport campus to wash and fuel vehicles each year. The center is designed to protect customers from the weather as they travel to and from the airport and make car pickup quicker and smoother.

The rental car companies proposed the project and the airport approved it, said airport director Mort Plumb.