Oceanworks Plan to Build San Diego Airport on the Pacific Ocean

Written by Susan Kraemer
Published on October 22nd, 2009
4 Comments
Posted in Business, Wave Energy, Wind Energy


OceanWorksDevelopment; a group of 40 architects and planners has come up with a pretty wild and grandiose (or brilliant and visionary) solution to San Diego’s siting problems for its much needed new airport. Float the entire thing off-shore.

How serious are they? In a legally unprecedented move, OceanWorks CEO Adam Englund has booked the 40,000 square mile space on the Pacific with this claim holding “airport rights”.

“He’d have about as much luck if he claimed the moon,” is how one former board member of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority described the stake. “While he’s at it, he might want to consider claiming Mars and Uranus as well.”

A company formed to develop ocean-based infrastructure assets is truly about that unprecedented. By sending out claim notices to a wide range of federal and regional officials and agencies, the group seems to be taking the right steps, according to professor Bill Slomanson, who teaches international law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.

The idea is it would be a greenpower bonanza: harvesting energy from wind, waves and ocean currents. One of the more useful ideas is to include a renewably powered desalination plant to turn ocean water into drinkable water, large enough to supply both the gigantic structure itself, but land-locked San Diego too.

The airport would only be the roof. Under the airport would be 200 million square feet of rentable space for hotels, restaurants, free trade zones and all that. This $20 billion, 2000-acre development would add more office space than is currently in all of San Diego county…

Image: OceanWorksDevelopment
Source: Infrastructurist

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4 Responses to “Oceanworks Plan to Build San Diego Airport on the Pacific Ocean”

  1. EcoChampion Says:
    October 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 am

    This is a made idea. How would you get people to and from the airport, and how would you deal with waste and storage of aviation fuel.

    Nice ideas but what would be the environmental risks.

  2. Susan Kraemer Says:
    October 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 am

    Yep. Underwater tunnels is the plan.

  3. Raum Says:
    October 24th, 2009 at 7:34 am

    This would sound outrageous and crazy if it hasn’t been done before.

    Chubu Centrair International Airport was built on an artificial island in central Japan. Some 11,721,673 people used the airport in the 2006, ranking 8th busiest in the nation.

    Here’s a link with a picture of it from the ministry of land in Japan.
    http://www.mlit.go.jp/koku/english/02_international/chubu.html

  4. san diego airport car rental Says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    best spot for airplanes to easily splash in the ocean