Electric aircraft could soon be helping Angelenos avoid traffic, and the rush is on to find spots for them to launch and land.
Cushman & Wakefield has a high-flying new assignment.
Vertiports by Atlantic tapped a Cushman team to scout out sites for electric air vehicles, also referred to as “flying taxis,” in cities along both coasts.
Cushman’s task is to find sites appropriate for electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, in California, New York, New Jersey and Florida, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The team leading the effort is based in Los Angeles, where officials are working with a San Jose-based company to incorporate flying taxis into plans for hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028.
So what does it take for a property to serve as a landing pad for a Jetson-esque flying car?
“Roughly a 3.5- to 4-acre site is ideal,” Cushman Executive Vice Chair Mike Condon Jr. said. “High-volume, high-traffic areas, areas that are the most infill, it’s going to be very challenging to find 4-acre sites in the middle of the city.”
But since the goal is creating a network and reducing congestion for terrestrial cars, properties in those denser locations also have to be part of the strategy.
For a “killer location,” Cushman and Vertiport will make it work, Condon said.
Offices, parking garages, warehouses and even regional malls are on the table to build out the network of landing pads, which Condon said will ideally number 20 or 30.
“We’re going to be very creative and we’re willing to look at anything that we can basically take off and land on,” Condon said.
These properties are “no-frills” sites, just places for these vehicles to land, pick up passengers, and leave.
VertiPorts by Atlantic is an arm of Atlantic Aviation, which operates an existing network of more than 100 private plane terminals at airports throughout the country, including eight in Southern California, which could potentially be used for the eVTOL aircraft.
These aircraft could be buzzing over car congestion as soon as next year, if pending Federal Aviation Administration approvals come through, according to the LA Times.
“It’ll be interesting to see which local cities are going to be the early adopters,” Condon said.