05:44 PM CDT on Monday, May 29, 2006

By CHRIS HEINBAUGH / WFAA-TV

J. MICHAEL SHORT/DMN

One developer envisages a San Antonio River Walk-style canal for Dallas

Love Field is considered a major asset of the City of Dallas, a self-supporting urban airport.

But a local engineering firm, Viewtech, Inc., thinks there's a better use - close the airport, tear it down, and redevelop.

Vic Lissiak has come up with a conceptual plan to redevelop the 1,300 acre site.

Stemming from Bachman Lake, there would be a system of River Walk-style canals - they'd form the backbone of the project.

"In my opinion, it's very doable," Lissiak says.

There would also be restaurants, hotels, a conference center, retail space and homes.

Lissiak says the city would reap big benefits - more than $100 million from the land sale; property tax revenue is estimated at $115 million a year.

"It really is a substantial increase in assets, tax base, revenue for the City of Dallas," he says.

But supporters of Love Field aren't buying the firm's claim.

They liken the redevelopment plan to junk science.

"It's very superficial, a lot of pretty pictures, but not any real hard data to support the author's conclusions," said Tony Page, a friend of Love Field.

"We don't think it's realistic."

They say demolishing Love Field and building new infrastructure would cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.

Thousands of aviation jobs would go too, as would Southwest Airlines, one of the city's largest taxpayers.

They say the plan is speculative, and a distraction in the Wright Amendment debate.

But Lissiak points to the former Stapleton Airport in Denver. Its 4,700 acres is being transformed into a major new neighborhood, one that so far, is very successful.

"Of all the things that are on the table for discussion right now, as it relates to Love Field, this should be one of them." he says.