By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Mercer County will build a new passenger terminal at Trenton-Mercer Airport in a possible $50 million project that could take at least four years to complete, county executive Brian M. Hughes said Thursday.
In his state of the county address, Mr. Hughes said the county needed to replace the nearly 50-year-old terminal at a transportation hub that sees more than one million passengers pass through there annually.
“Our region can support even further growth at the airport,” he said to some 450 people in a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency. “We will miss too many opportunities if we don’t address this issue now.”
He said his office would move “aggressively” to design and build “a passenger terminal that will meet our needs for today and into the future.”
“The new passenger terminal will be one of the most significant infrastructure investments by the county in a long time,” he said, as the county has already spent $7 million to upgrade the terminal and parking lots.
Though the county will have to borrow for the project, it would be paid off through passenger facility charges and parking fees, he said.
The airport announcement was the biggest news in a roughly 32-minute speech by a county executive beginning his fourth term in office. Re-elected in November, the Democrat said voters had given his administration a “mandate” to “build on our vision of a vibrant Mercer County, a county with a thriving economy, an outstanding workforce and a pristine environment.”
In touching on the economic health of the county, he stressed the need to improve the education of the region’s workforce, where unemployment stood at 4.2 percent as of November, Mr. Hughes said.
“Employers often tell us that they have difficulty finding employees with the talents they need. Those businesses will make the decision to invest and grow where they find the human capital they need,” he said.
With that in mind, he announced the creation of a commission, led by Mercer County Community College President Jianping Wang, to find ways to increase the number of people in the workforce who hold a college degree or its equivalent. He set a goal over the next five years to bring that total to 2,500 people.
In doing so, he talked of his own meandering journey through his college years in and out of different schools, including Cornell and Rutgers universities and the community college before graduating from the then-Thomas Edison State College, now University.
When he came to that part of his speech, he deviated from his prepared remarks to talk of the reasons why he decided to complete his college education, in order to start a family and succeed in business, among other things.
“There are so many people out there like me,” he said, as his wife, Pamela, and their 16-year-old son, Sullivan, sat at a table in front of him. Mr. Hughes’ son introduced him before he took the podium.
Earlier in his remarks, Mr. Hughes touted plans to have another round of a county grant program to help towns build or fix up recreational facilities.
That idea won applause from Freeholder Andrew Koontz, who said afterward that he was “delighted” to hear him make the announcement.
Mr. Hughes made some political news by saying long-time Freeholder Anthony P. Carabelli would not be running for re-election this year. He has been on the board since 1981, and also is a former Trenton City councilman.
