Kane, Stebbins push plan for massive air cargo facilities at Pease
This photo from the National Archives gives an aerial view of the north end of the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease and the area abutting the apron at right where John Kane of the Kane Company and John Stebbins of Procon say they want to build an aeronautic/air cargo handling facility.
The Kane Company and Procon frequently partner up for large scale projects in the state, particularly in the Seacoast region — Kane as the developer, Procon as the contract builder.
Among their many collaborative projects are a mixeduse office building on Maplewood Avenue in Portsmouth’s North End that opened in November 2021 and new home to, among others, Heinemann Publishing.
They’ve teamed up as developer/builder for projects at the Pease International Tradeport, including a 52,600-square-foot creation/renovation at 30 New Hampshire Avenue as the new worldwide headquarters of Aclara, a global supplier of smart infrastructure technologies to electric, water and gas utilities.
But their latest project is perhaps their most ambitious yet: aeronautic-related and air cargo-handling facilities at the Portsmouth International Airport.
It’s not only ambitious in scale — a total of about 750,000 square feet, if fully built out — but also in terms of regulatory and public perception hurdles that will have to be overcome.
The review process by the Pease Development Authority (PDA) board of directors is only just beginning.
The PDA’s oversight purview includes both the tradeport and the airport, the result of the federal government closing the U.S. Air Force Base there in 1991 and turning over its redevelopment to the authority, a public entity. Per Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements, revenue from the commercial development side of the airport must help fund, maintain and enhance the airport side.
“The airport is the basis for Pease. The airport is the reason why the Pease Development Authority was created, and it is the reason why we’ve had such a successful tradeport,” said PDA Executive Director Paul Brean, noting that the air cargo proposals are allowed by the zoning and encouraged by the FAA.
“Our role as a sponsor is to work and manage the impact on the communities that this activity brings,” he added.
The Kane Company has deep family and professional roots in Portsmouth and the Seacoast, according to John Kane, chief investment officer at the family company. Procon is a construction services company out of Hooksett, the largest architecture and construction firm in New Hampshire, according to John Stebbins, the company’s managing director, who noted its principals also live in Portsmouth.
“We’ve been partnering with The Kane Company now for decades, since the early ‘90s,” said Stebbins, in comments to the PDA board in January. “And we’ve done over 18 million square feet of development with The Kane Company. They’re a trusted partner, and we have a great relationship, and we are co-invested in a number of projects together.”
“We’ve built a sizable portfolio of office/industrial — we own some hotels through the Stebbins Group — and largely we’re dedicated to this region,” added Kane, noting they’ve collaborated on a total of nine buildings at Pease.
Stebbins is advancing the project not as Procon, but as a partner of TST Development along with his sister, Jen Stebbins Thomas, also a principal at Procon, and Eben Tormey, project manager with XXS Hotels.
The Kane/TST proposal involves two parcels at the airport.
One site is called Hangar 227, an old 200,000-squarefoot Air Force hangar, used at one point by TWA when it flew commercially in and out of Pease, and now used as cold storage for Pease machinery and equipment. It is located off Aviation Avenue in Portsmouth.
Kane/TST proposes to demolish the building (and provide a new storage building for the Authority) and replace it with 185,000 square feet of new construction, up to a total of 400,000 square feet in a second phase.
The other site is known as the North 40, or North Apron, comprising about 40 acres of undeveloped land off Arboretum Drive on the Newington side of the airport, abutting the 157th Air Refueling Squadron of the NH Air National Guard. The Kane/TST proposal shows 110,000 square feet of initial construction, up to 324,000 total square feet if totally built out in a second phase.
One difficulty is that an end user, or users, hasn’t been identified. Is it UPS? Amazon? DHL? USPS? All of them? Some of them? None of them?
According to the developers, their negotiations include non-disclosure agreements that restrict the companies from being publicly revealed. According to Kane, the users that are in negotiation — almost two dozen, he said — are all U.S.-based Fortune 500 companies.
Without knowing who the user or users would be, how can the public and the board accurately assess potential impacts of air and truck traffic that will affect not only Portsmouth and Newington but other communities in the region as well, the developers are being asked.
Erik Anderson, Portsmouth’s representative on the PDA board, said he’d like to see who these potential users are. He said the information would help in the board’s review, particularly when it comes to the impact traffic will have on the roads and highways around the tradeport, Interstate 95, the Spaulding Turnpike and Route 33 chief among them. Kane said if that information is given to the board, members would have to sign confidentiality agreements.
Stebbins told the board that a benefit of having multiple potential users allows them to be choosy in work with the PDA to make sure the end user is the right user for Pease and the region.
“We don’t know what their traffic patterns are going to be. We haven’t gotten that far,” Kane told the board. “What we know is that, regionally, there is a bubble of demand that we want to pull up here.”
John Stebbins, managing director at Procon in Hooksett
Even without any detailed plans, residents of the region are lining up to tell the board their concerns about air traffic, truck traffic, noise pollution, the size of the aircraft, flights coming in and going out at night, to name just a few.
One change.org petition asks for signatures “to help us keep our environment safe and our quality of life free from further noise, air and land pollutants.”
Among the issues cited in the petition: “Night flights cause sleep disturbances, a recognized health hazard. Also, there can be no arrival and/or departure time limits, as the FAA does not allow airports to limit volume or time of flights or type of aircraft.”
Several people spoke to the Pease directors during a public comments period at their March monthly meeting.
Among their requests, they desire independent analysis of traffic impact and environmental concerns, not wanting the board to rely on studies paid for by the developers, likening it to the proverbial fox looking after the hen house.
They worry about flight patterns, when those flights will occur day and night, and how much noise they’ll generate.
“Rye needs to have standing on this proposal,” Phil Winslow, vice chair of the Rye Select Board, told directors, noting that 80 percent of flights pass over the coastal town, at an altitude of about 1,200 feet. “How can a plan that brings in nighttime freighter flights not impact our quality of life much less not increase environmental pollution?” The developers insist “we will only permit Stage 4 aircraft to be a part of either of these projects.”
By FAA standards, a Stage 1 aircraft is the loudest. As of December 31, 2020, the FAA’s newest standard for quiet is Stage 5. The new standard, according to the FAA, applies to certain aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of less than 121,254 pounds.
John Kane, chief investment officer at the Kane Company in Portsmouth
Pease currently hosts a combination of commercial passenger (Allegiant Airlines), government contract flights for troop overseas deployment, corporate, general aviation and military aircraft.
According to the developers, the KC-46 Pegasus aircraft used by the NH Air Guard is rated as a Stage 4. The KC-46 is powered by Pratt and Whitney 4062 engines, which is Stage 4-compliant, according to Brean at the PDA.
“Stage 4 is currently the most stringent regulated standard for aircraft noise and is the aircraft class used by both Allegiant and the Air National Guard. Simply put, our end users will be using the most sophisticated, quietest and cleanest aircraft available to meet their needs,” Kane and Stebbins said in a recent joint statement.
Though the emphasis of discussion thus far has been on air freight, Kane and Stebbins said air cargo won’t be exclusive to the two development sites, that they are “exploring a lot of aviation-related uses and users, not just air cargo.”
Hangar 227 will be demolished and replaced with a new aeronautic/air cargo-handling facility, according to a proposal from John Kane of the Kane Company and John Stebbins of Procon. (Courtesy photo)
They have developed a website as a resource, peaseairsidedevelopment.com.
“We are just beginning a long and thorough process that will ultimately determine the design and utility of the old hangar and the apron,” the developers say. “But we want to be clear on one point: This project will not become a major air cargo operation like the ones you see in large cities such as Boston or other air cargo hubs. We understand the importance of producing a quality project that protects our quality of life, and we take that responsibility seriously.”
It’s not only ambitious in scale — a total of about 750,000 square feet, if fully built out — but also in terms of regulatory and public perception hurdles to be overcome.
