Apr. 8—GUILFORD COUNTY — Elected leaders and business recruiters in the Piedmont Triad delivered big time 25 years ago.

On April 13, 1998, FedEx Corp. announced that it would build a national cargo hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport, promising to transform the area economy.

In the quarter of a century since FedEx executives picked PTIA over five other airports in the Carolinas, the global delivery giant not only has opened its mid-Atlantic air cargo hub but developed an extensive ground delivery operation from a facility in Kernersville near the airport, and the hub also has indirectly benefited the airport's industrial recruitment efforts.

Tom Maxwell, managing director of the Piedmont district for FedEx Express, said the company is pleased with how the PTIA project has panned out.

"As FedEx continues to grow and evolve to meet consumer demand for our services, so does our impact in communities like the Triad region," Maxwell said.

It took several years for FedEx and the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority to begin work on the hub. The project cleared a series of government oversight reviews, and the airport prevailed in lawsuits filed in state and federal court by neighborhood groups worried about noise.

In addition to the hub, the project included construction of a parallel, 9,000-foot-long runway, giving PTIA three runways. The upgrades also included construction of new roads around the airport and a series of cloverleaf airport entrances and exits. The total cost of the improvements was nearly $500 million.

The hub opened in 2009 on a 175-acre site. According to the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority, the hub consists of seven buildings and an aircraft ramp with 11 gates. The 475,000-square-foot sorting hub is designed to handle 24,000 packages per hour, with provisions in place to expand to 48,000, the authority indicates on the PTIA website.

The company originally projected 750 workers initially and as many as 1,500 when the hub was fully operational. Maxwell said that FedEx now has about 2,000 workers throughout the Piedmont Triad.

At the time, the projected $300 million investment by FedEx was rolled out, FedEx was pledged the largest economic incentives package in North Carolina history, $142 million in incentives over a 20-year period.

FedEx also projected eventually having up to 126 daily flight operations, meaning departures and arrivals, between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., which is why residents in northern High Point near the airport feared the effects of aircraft noise on property values and quality of life.

But those fears haven't materialized to the degree expected. The number of FedEx flights in and out of PTIA never reached initial projections as FedEx's business model changed with the advent of the digital economy.

Maxwell said that the hub currently averages more than 20 daily flights.

Because the noise hasn't materialized, in November the High Point City Council unanimously approved a series of changes to the city's airport overlay district, which was put in place in 2003 to prevent residences, schools and churches from being built where they would be affected by aircraft noise. Changing the boundaries will allow residential development within about 1,400 acres where it had been prohibited.

The development of the hub also has had positive spinoff impacts because the upgrades made to the airport to accommodate the hub also have allowed PTIA to secure other projects, PTIA Executive Director Kevin Baker said.

"There's so much more for this airport in terms of its future," he said.

Baker said one of the most significant legacies of the hub's site selection is the message that the well-known global corporation sent about the Piedmont Triad.

"We can thank the fact that we have FedEx here for being at least a component in the decision-making process of others to locate their facilities here," he said.

pjohnson@hpenews.com — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul