Daily News from New York, New York • 354

QUOTE OF THE DAY We're a rea airline. Pan Am people have been waiting a long time for this day and they are quite MARTIN SHUGRUE, Pan Am president, on gaining DOT approval to operate Jar B'klyn piers, grain site may be on the block By DOUGLAS FEIDEN MAKING A LIST: PA chief George Marlin says Piers 1 and 5 on the Brooklyn waterfront are among six properties that could be sold. DrWy News Business Writer Port Authority brass said yesterday they're stepping up efforts to unload the agency's giant portfolio of money-losing properties. Executive Director George Martin said the PA is considering the sale or lease of at least six major facilities, including Piers 1 to 5 in Brooklyn, and an unused terminal that houses one of the world's biggest grain elevators. Also on the laundry list Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

The latest privatization offensive follows the PA's sale of the Vista Hotel at the World Trade Center and industrial parks in Yonkers and Elizabeth, N.J., as well as its exploration of a possible sale or lease of the twin towers. Marlin said the rusting PA Grain Terminal in Red Hook and its abandoned centerpiece, the New York Barge Canal Grain Elevator is typical of how the Port is finally divesting unwanted holdings left over from its empire-building era. The grain elevator, with a storage capacity of 1.8 million bushels, was built in 1922 and closed in 1965 when it no longer had a role to play in the commerce of New York Harbor. But the Port held on to the parcel even though it sat unused for over three decades. It looks like Berlin, 1945," Marlin said in a speech to the New York Building Congress yesterday.

"Why this thing has been sitting out there for 30 years after it closed, 1 don't know. But we're going to sell it now." The PA says it is negotiating with a private developer for the sale of the Grain Terminal, which was described in a 1984 federal report as "a magnificent work of engineering, but also a magnificent boondoggle." The Port won't identify the bidder. Possible uses for the terminal site include a recycling plant or massive redevelopment for mixed maritime uses. Meanwhile, these other Port properties are on the privatization menu: Piers 1 to 5 in Brooklyn, which lose about $10.8 million a year. Marlin said the PA will seek bids from private developers to buy the five underused piers due south of the Brooklyn Bridge early next year.

The request for bids is being crafted with Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden, the city, state and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition, a local group that had fought the Port for months over the future of the site. Officials eventually forged a compromise with the PA and the coalition, insiders say. Current plans, modeled after the coalition's proposals, now call for a mixed-use recreational and commercial development of the piers that would include a park, marina, catering hall, restaurants and conference center. Golden endorsed the plan. Teterboro Airport in Bergen County, which loses $481,000 a year.

The PA, which owns the 867-acre airport and leases it to a private developer, is considering a sale of the facility, which has two runways and 18 hangars. Other options are picking a new operator or inking a new contract with the present operator. Newark Legal and Communications Center, which loses $3.8 million a year. Privatization options include the sale of the building, which houses law firms and telecommunications companies and helped spark the revival of downtown Newark. Essex County Resource Recovery Facility, which earns $6 million a year.

The PA may sell the recycling plant in Newark to Essex County. Historic Pan American World Airways earned its new wings late Wednesday, bringing back to the air one of the best known names in aviation. The Department of Transportation issued its final order for Pan Am, finding the Miami-based carrier "fit, willing and able" to fly. "We're a real airline," said a jubilant Pan Am President Martin Shu-grue in New York, where he was meeting with travel agents, tour operators and alliance partners. "Pan Am people have been waiting a long time for this day and they are quite ecstatic." Pan Am will launch its initial flights Thursday, beginning with daily round-trip service between Miami and JFK, and JFK and Los Angeles.

Within two weeks, Pan Am will expand that service to three daily 5 Ay OUTSZiXDING FINANCIAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE PREPAID CELLULAR WIRELESS SERVICE INDUSTRY EinsuiiunsMPssmEi TKXE SEMINAR LOCATIONS RJ.Y.P. (8S0) 7(4-428 1 PAN AM gets DOT approval as "fit, willing and able" to fly. roundtrips between Miami and JFK. Introductory one-way fares between Miami and New York will be $99 through Nov. 24, with no restrictions, Shugrue said.

The fares are subject to government approval. Spokesman Jeff Kriendler said the airline expects to begin taking reservations right away. The approval is the culmination of two years of solid work, Shugrue said. It was about a year ago that he FRI. SOT.

29 ESTCH ESTER Crownc Plaza-Hli Plains Ham i 7pm (Route 287 Exit 8) DOT's approval process took longer than expected, and Pan Am has racked up about $10 million in start-up costs, Shugrue said. A loss of $6 million in projected for the first year, mostly due to pre-operating expenses. The former company folded in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Families of those who died in the crash had objected to the air-Jine returning to the sky. They particularly opposed SAT.

SEPT. 21 ROCKLAND Holiday hm-Orangeburg 11am A 2pm (Palisades Ply Exit 5N) joined forces with Chuck Cobb who had purchased SUN. SEPT. 22 MANHATTAN Doubletree Suites 2pm 4pm (7th A 47th St.) fi the original Pan Am name and trademark and the i Shugrue, who had headed the old airline until early two laid plans to restart the historic carrier, which 1988 when.he left to head Continental. was the first to fly around the world.

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