(Louisville Business First) - On a scale of one to crazy, how does a regional airport in the Shelbyville area sound?
That was one of the bigger ideas that emerged from a brainstorming session held in Denver Tuesday afternoon to cap the Greater Louisville Inc. GLIDE trip.
For the better part of three days, local business, civic, education, transportation and nonprofit leaders joined Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and other public officials in the study of Denver's rapid ascent as an educated city full of young professionals drawn by culture and amenities.
As we quickly learned, much of Denver's economic engine is powered by its expansive international airport, which has a rich global presence with more than two dozen international nonstop flights.
The airport is connected to downtown Denver through commuter rail, and Denver has adopted light rail after instituting a local-option sales tax to fund its construction and maintenance.
The airport's distance from downtown Denver is nearly equal to Shelbyville's distance from downtown Louisville. Jim Dahlem, president of Louisville's Dahlem Enterprises Inc. argued that the geographic location would better link Lexington and Louisville, creating a regional transportation hub between Kentucky's two largest cities.
"It should've been done 40 years ago," he said.
Dahlem admitted it would be a radical move, but he pointed out that Denver built up its regional airport specifically to become a global city.
Louisville's challenge would be compounded by the presence of the United Parcel Service Inc. air hub, Worldport, but Dahlem and others argued in favor of giving UPS the existing airport for future expansion.
Louisville leaders were encouraged to share such bold ideas by GLI President and CEO Kent Oyler, who broke the group into smaller teams to discuss improvements in the areas of business recruitment, transportation, lifestyle amenities and intergovernmental partnerships.
Each group presented their findings, which will be combined into a GLI report. Oyler said a wrap-up session will be held with attendees soon to debrief and decide what areas to seriously explore.
In the meantime, I have compiled a few more of the bolder concepts discussed yesterday.
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