CLICK HERE. / " title="ROAD AHEAD: A map of the Interlink facility. The car-rental companies will be located in the customer-service building. For a larger version of this graphic, CLICK HERE. /"/>The train station at T.F. Green Airport’s new intermodal facility often steals the spotlight. But cars play a big part too.
The Warwick facility, coined InterLink, was scheduled to begin hosting service counters and 1,800 parking spaces for car-rental companies beginning Oct. 27. It represents the first time in the airport’s history that car-rental companies serving the airport will all share one roof.
The companies – now scattered in separate buildings near the airport – initially bitterly opposed the facility connected to the terminal via a pedestrian bridge over Post Road. They complained they would shoulder too much of the cost of the project. They objected to a fee tacked onto rentals to help cover the cost. They sued to stop the project.
But that was roughly a decade ago, before the project ever left the drawing board. Now, the rental companies, the R.I. Airport Corporation that manages the airport and the state have largely settled their differences and the companies long ago dropped the lawsuit.
“We kind of resigned ourselves that we’re going over there, and we’re going to make the best of it,” said Tom Celona, who led car owners in the battle over the project.
Celona has since sold his Thrifty car-rental franchise in Warwick, but remains close to executives at those businesses that will move into the new facility. They will come in part because of what they perceive as a better deal than initially proposed and leases with the airport that essentially mandate they take up residence in the facility or risk not doing business with the airport.
The companies moving include some of the largest car-rental firms in the nation. Enterprise Holdings will move in its Alamo, Enterprise and National lines. The Hertz Corp. will open desks for its Hertz and Advantage Rent-A-Car brands. Avis, Budget, Dollar Rent-a-Car, Payless and Thrifty offices also will arrive.
“It’s full speed ahead for us,” Hertz spokesman Richard Broome said. “Whatever financing issues were problems in the past have been cleared up.”
Together, the companies will share the operating costs of maintaining the building, paying in proportion to their airport market share. A group of companies secured a $12 million loan backed by the federal government to help pay their costs, Celona said. They hired CB Richard Ellis to manage the building, which includes facilities to clean and fuel rental cars.
For nine years, car companies have collected a daily fee from each customer that rents a vehicle at the airport. The fee, which rose to $5 a day on Oct. 1, has so far brought in $45 million for the project, said R.I. Airport Corporation President and CEO Kevin Dillon. Eventually, the fees are expected to cover 42 percent of the cost of the $267 million project. They will also serve as a reserve source for paying operating expenses if the commuter parking garage fails to generate the money expected, Dillon said.
Car-rental executives say the fee – because it is equal across all companies – does not put them at a disadvantage competitively.
And some car-rental executives said they expect the building – in the long term – to reduce their costs. That’s because the companies can eliminate their shuttles that dart between the terminal and their offices, mostly sprinkled along Post Road in Warwick.
Operating a shuttle to ferry customers between the terminal and the Dollar Rent-a-Car office across the street costs well more than $100,000 a year, said John DaMore, who owns the Warwick airport Dollar franchise.
“It should save us money, because we won’t be burning fuel, and we won’t be polluting the environment with our buses,” he said.
Consolidating car-rental companies into a building connected to a terminal is becoming increasingly popular across the country as airports look to maximize land area around them, said spokeswomen for the Hertz Corp. and Enterprise Holdings.
Car companies also appreciate the pedestrian connection to the facility rather than an airport authority-controlled shuttle system implemented at some airports, Hertz spokeswoman Paula Rivera said. The bridge means Hertz is not at the mercy of an authority-set schedule for buses.
For customers, one location provides a central point for comparing prices and offers. Don’t like one quote? Move to another desk in the same building and find another. But DaMore said he is not worried about going head-to-head with his competitors.
“It’s just a different boxing arena. That’s all,” he said.
An arena that may be too small even before it opens. Celona said he expects many car companies to keep off-site facilities because the airport building is too small to fit all their cars. Also, companies cannot perform maintenance on the cars at the airport, all but requiring that they keep another facility, Celona said.
Under city zoning regulations, the car companies may keep their current facilities indefinitely. But zoning adopted in 1998 forbids car companies from storing vehicles in the immediate area of the InterLink building. Practically, that forces car companies to choose between the InterLink and moving farther away from the terminal where customers may not wander.
“The reason for this prohibition is to take full advantage of the InterLink intermodal facility to attract high-quality, high-density commercial development, as well as the fact that all of the major rental-car agencies are already located within the InterLink facility,” Warwick Planning Director Mark Carruolo said.
The facility is, of course, more than just cars. The InterLink also includes a station for Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority trains that will whisk passengers to Boston when service comes online later this year. There’s also an 800-space commuter parking garage and a bus terminal.
“In the end I think it’s a good a thing,” Celona “But it took a long time to get there.” •
