Midwest Airports Projects
Blue Skies for Airport Construction
by Elaine Schmidt

Throughout the Midwest, airports are expanding and modernizing, and also incorporating new national security standards into design and construction.

O'Hare International Airport

In Chicago, 40-year-old O'Hare International Airport, which reclaimed "the world's busiest airport" title in 2002, is getting a facelift.

Known as the O'Hare Terminal Facade and Circulation Enhancement Project, or the O'Hare FACE project, the $300 million job broke ground with preliminary work in 2002.
The work is phased to keep airport operations in full swing throughout construction and is slated for completion in 2007.

Included in the redo is a new, cantilevered canopy on terminals 1, 2 and 3 that will present a unified facade. It is constructed of a cable-supported wall of insulated glass and will provide cover for two lanes of departures traffic.

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Midway Airport

Chicago's Midway Airport is undergoing a dramatic transformation via the construction of a new terminal building. Bond said the project broke ground in 1999, and the terminal building is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

She said the $971 million project at a bustling urban airport had to be accomplished without disrupting air traffic or passenger flow.

Bond added that careful phasing and scheduling enabled the construction project to proceed and at the same time keep the airport fully operational. When completed, the approximately 930,000-sq.-ft. facility will have an annual passenger enplanement capacity of 8.5 million. HNTB Corp. of Chicago is the project's designer, with Unzelman Associates Inc. as construction manager.

Indianapolis International Airport

The Indianapolis International Airport broke ground in September on a new, 1,200,000-sq.-ft. terminal complex that will sit between the airport's two main runways.

Slated for completion in 2007, the $975 million complex includes a new ticketing facility, central passenger security area, baggage claim area, administrative offices and up to 40 gates designed to accommodate the various narrow- and wide-body aircraft that serve the airport.

Also included in the development are roadway access, vehicle parking, commercial development and airport support facilities.

"This is being built to move us from a terminal that is 30 years old to one that will serve for 30 years," said John Kish, Midfield project director for the Indianapolis Airport Authority. "It will give us a new capacity for incremental growth and the ability to adjust to circumstances in the aviation industry."

Kish said that the terminal's design was intended to accommodate the security requirements that were predicted to be enacted over the coming 30 years.

Kish added that using the between-the-runways site will reap a 23 percent reduction in plane taxi times and a corresponding reduction in emissions and fuel consumption.
The Indianapolis International Airport has a stringent document security program in place.

One of the security features Kish mentioned is a remote goods and suppliers facility, which will keep large trucks away from the terminal building until they have been screened by security personnel.

Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Inc. of St. Louis is the design architect for the project.
Turner's Indianapolis office, in a joint venture with Indianapolis-based Trotter Construction Co., will serve as construction manager for the sitework.

Hunt Construction Group Inc. of Indianapolis and Smoot Construction of Columbus, Ohio, are construction managers for the terminal building.

Kish said the HOK design "is inspiring and forward-looking, but also quite functional. We will be flexible enough to accommodate any changes that we might see in the next several decades."

He added that the new terminal will contain a large, column-free, open area called the Civic Plaza, which can be used to stage community events and present retail opportunities.

"If the need arises, we can use this space to provide even more heightened security into the concourse areas," he said.

Dane County (Wisconsin) Regional Airport

At Madison's Dane County Regional Airport, plans for a $33.5 million reconstruction and renovation project were scheduled for release to potential bidders in October 2001.

Tom Thayer, president of Tri-North Builders, the project's general contractor, said the plans were pulled back, reviewed and altered to comply with post-Sept. 11 security regulations. Plans were eventually released for bidding in January.

"The bidding process, which most people would say is normally not a big challenge, was probably the most challenging part of this job," Thayer added.

After narrowing the field to three bidders, the airport set up strict security requirements regarding handling of the project's plans, much like Indianapolis. In order to keep sensitive information from falling into potentially dangerous hands, each firm had to agree to and maintain those measures throughout the bidding process.

"We had to create a secure bid room in our office," Thayer said. "We took one-half of the upper level of our offices and made a big area with 15 workstations. We ran it from 6 a.m. to 7:30 at night.

"We had to have full-time security during that time and we had to get all the subs and suppliers in there. None of them could make photo copies or take photos of the drawings."

Security concerns were not limited to the bidding process.

"Every person who works on the site has to go through a security course, has to be fingerprinted and has to go through an FBI background check," Thayer said.

All workers have to comply with airport security at all times, and project plans remain under tight security.

"We are still working off a very small number of sets of plans, and everybody has to account for those sets just as we did during the bidding process," Thayer added.

The project includes a 25,000-sq.-ft. addition.

Thayer cited keeping runways clear of any type of construction debris and coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration, Traffic Safety Administration, Wisconsin State Bureau of Aeronautics and the Dane County Regional Airport as ongoing project issues.

He added that the project's next big hurdle will be moving all of the airline offices into temporary quarters and then back into their renovated offices, while maintaining smooth passenger flow throughout the airport at all times.

Although completion is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2005, Thayer said his firm is shooting for a completion date in October.

Central Illinois Regional Airport

In Bloomington, Ill., the Central Illinois Regional Airport is getting an expanded north/south runway to match the new terminal that opened in November 2001.

The new runway project was necessary to accommodate the wide-body Airbus A300s, which will replace the DC-9s used by Airborne Express and need greater runway length for landing.

The current project will also include widening and strengthening taxiways and the expansion of its east/west runway.

Gene Miner, project manager for CIRA, said the project is part of a five-year series of jobs funded by the federal government. Future projects include the rebuilding of taxiways, a runway overlay and installation of a state-of-the-art instrument landing system.

Earthwork for the current, $17.5 million runway expansion project began in September 2002, stopping for winter in November. Work resumed in March and was to be completed this month.

Project superintendent Terry Littig, with general contractor United Midwest Contractors Inc. in Springfield, Ill., said the job has entailed a tremendous amount of earthwork and electrical work.

"We have done about 600,000 cu. yds. of earthwork," he added. "Most of it was embankments, but we also dug retention ponds."

He said the electrical work included centerline and touchdown zone lights on the runways, as well as edge lights on the shoulders.

"We widened runway 220," Littig said. "We added 25 ft. of concrete on each side of the runway and 25 ft. of asphalt shoulder on each side, too."

He said that in addition to lengthening the actual runway 1,000 ft., 200-ft. blast pads were added on either end of the runway.

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