Real Estate Developer Rick Caruso Eyes Expansion Into Airports

(MoneyWatch)  When it comes to inspired shopping and restaurants, airports have nearly always been at the bottom of the must-list. For years, cafeteria food and crappy gift shops filled space in airports, to nobody's delight. That has been changing, and now LA-based developer Rick Caruso wants to get in on it.

Caruso is known for building large shopping/dining destination complexes like The Grove in Los Angeles. Now he wants to take his ideas into airports to make them more traveler-friendly. It's a nice idea, but he has a lot of hurdles ahead of him.

First, airports have started to get wise to the fact that travelers don't want airports to be generic places. While shopping used to be the last thing on the mind of a traveler in an airport, longer wait times thanks to security and delays mean more time to kill in the airport. And that's where shopping and dining can come in handy.

Caruso needs to look no further than LAX to see this change. Visitors to LAX will now find local legends like Pink's Hot Dogs and Gladstone's as good places to spend time munching on food that's actually edible. Airports all over the country have gotten on the local kick. You'll find a Potbelly's at Chicago Midway and a Legal Seafoods at Boston Logan, for example.

On the shopping side, airports have gotten the hint as well. Pittsburgh led the charge back in the day with its AirMall concept, though that really only works well when you have lots of passengers at your airport. Pittsburgh has seen declining numbers for a long time. But it's not just there. You'll find Hoosier designer Vera Bradley with a store at the Indy Airport. Washington's National Airport has a Smithsonian Museum Store, and that's just the beginning.

So what will Caruso really be able to offer? A fresh perspective, I suppose. Most airport developers probably look at a space and just figure out what store can fill it. That hasn't been the case everywhere. (JetBlue's new Terminal 5 at JFK is a good example.) But for the vast majority, Caruso probably wants to see what he can bring.

There is, however, one other problem. Though he may be progressive, he still has to deal with airports. And airports couldn't be any further from progressive. Most airports are either government-run or run by airport authorities which have only slightly more latitude. To get them to see the light with something like this will be tough, but I say more power to him . . . if he really has something unique up his sleeve.

[Photo via Flickr users ronocph]