Airports Arrive

Construction Projects
Abound at Port Authority's Regional Facilities

The Port Authority's airports are bustling with new projects.

by Jim Parsons

Despite rising airline fares, fewer in-flight perks, and tighter security procedures, a record number of passengers are using the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's three major airports.

In the first six months of 2006, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International, and LaGuardia airports logged more than 50 million passengers, putting them on track to surpass last year's record of 100 million arrivals and departures.

Perhaps the only thing rivaling the abundance of aircraft and passengers at what has become the nation's busiest regional airport system is the volume of construction equipment. The Port Authority has a crowded agenda of current and candidate projects lined up in an ongoing 10-year, $14 billion capital improvement program.

"The public-private airports redevelopment program that we've spearheaded is geared to keep airports vibrant and provide vital facilities for world-class service for air travelers and cargo," said Charles Gargano, the Port Authority's vice chairman.

The construction activity at the airports is not expected to slow down. A 10-year strategic plan approved by the Port Authority's board late last year outlines possible future projects such as a modernization of Newark's Terminal A and up to $7 billion in improvements to AirLink, PATH, and other surface-access systems serving all three airports.

In the present round of construction, there is little work taking place at LaGuardia, but the authority's strategic plan called for study of a $1 billion renovation and upgrade to the airport's 42-year-old Central Terminal Building. The project would aim to accommodate larger planes by reconfiguring the terminal's four existing spokes - essentially spreading them out farther from each other to increase aircraft clearance.

The current slate of construction revolves primarily around JFK and Newark, which are bursting with activity.

advertisement

Modernization at Newark Airport

Newark Airport in Newark, N.J., finished a busy round of construction activity several years ago that included the construction of hangars and airplane maintenance facilities and the 2002 expansion of its Terminal C by Continental Airlines to add a baggage claim area.

Now, the cranes and backhoes should be busy again for a similar conversion of Terminal B, which primarily handles international arrivals and departures. The Port Authority was set to make awards this fall on contracts for the $279.2 million Terminal B project with a goal of completing it in 2008.

Terminal B and a part of Terminal C not used by Continental serve various airlines, including several international carriers, Delta, and Northwest, though the Port Authority owns all of the facilities. The 35-year-old Terminal B had gotten a major upgrade only a decade ago with the opening of its 250,000-sq.-ft. federal inspection area for arriving international passengers.

But the facility needs an upgrade, said Trevor Liddle, the authority's modernization program director.

"Terminal B was designed for an equal flow of travelers," he added. "Today, we have two arrivals for every departure, an imbalance that the current configuration does not handle well."

The 2,000-acre airport has little room to grow, Liddle said.

"Renovation and modernization are our only options, as there are no green-field sites left to build new facilities," he added. "This is the best way to get everything done with the fewest inconveniences."

The Terminal B modernization strategy calls for turning a former ground floor parking area - which was taken out of service as a security measure after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing - into a 70,000-sq.-ft. baggage claim space for domestic arrivals. A new 600-lin.-ft., two-lane, at-grade operational passenger pick-up area will tie into the existing network of elevated circulation roads.

Once that work is completed, the existing domestic baggage claim area on the midlevel will be converted into a ticketing space for outbound domestic flights, which will share that floor with arriving international flights. The project will conclude with a renovation of the upper level to handle international departures.

Two contracts were set for award this fall for construction on the lower level expansion, which attracted three bids ranging from $48 million to $66 million, and another for the building's connector structures, which drew five bids ranging from $62 million to $79 million.

The project also involves smaller improvements, such as building out 16,000 sq. ft. of concession areas and 23,000 sq. ft. of space for the terminal's three checkpoints for boarding passengers, which will provide a total of 11 screening lanes.

Port Authority staff is designing most of the modernization, which Liddle said expedites the project turnaround process.

"[We have] a strong insider's understanding of our needs and the various facilities' possibilities, permutations, and limitations," he added.

Building Two New Terminals at JFK

The 880-acre central terminal area of Kennedy Airport in Queens is also crowded with construction activity, due in large part to two major terminal projects: a new $1.4 billion facility for American Airlines and an $875 million terminal for Jet Blue.

Building American's terminal, designed by various engineering affiliates of Los Angeles-based AECOM, has involved a complex, seven-year effort to replace two outmoded terminals, multiple operational transitions, and a security redesign spurred by the Sept. 11 attacks.

The 1.5-million-sq.-ft., 36-gate project involves the replacement of the existing terminals 8 and 9, which American had long used, with a new main terminal, a support area dubbed Concourse C, and a tunnel connecting them.

A first phase with VRH of Englewood, N.J., and Torcon of Westfield, N.J., as the joint-venture contractor finished up last year with the construction of a 57,000-sq.-ft., naturally lit ticketing hall that sits in between the two old terminal structures, as well as construction on the three-story Concourse C and tunnel.

The next phase - demolition of the older terminals and construction of the main 224,000-sq. ft. terminal structure, known as Concourse B - broke ground last year with the same joint-venture contractor and partially opened in May.

A future phase is set to add Concourse A in the area where parts of the old terminals are still standing.

The biggest challenge on the project this summer was the mid-August delivery of components for the three-dimensional truss system that forms the structural spine for Concourse B, said Lewis Walling, American's senior project manager.

"There were 11 segments altogether, including two that were 60 ft. long," Walling said. "They were too large for the highways, so we barged them over from Jersey City in three shipments, then trucked them across the airport in the middle of the night."

With the primary steel now in place, the next major milestones for the Concourse B construction team are completion of the curtain wall and airside civil work, both scheduled for January.

Logistics are also a prominent hurdle on the site of Jet Blue's 26-gate, 635,000-sq.-ft. terminal, which is rising behind the landmark, Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center, also known as Terminal 5 and which has been vacant for years. The new terminal's foundation was nearly complete this fall, along with more than half of the structural steel, as the team prepares to finish by late 2007 or early 2008.

"It's a big challenge to provide sufficient room for materials and tradesmen," said Emaad Lotfalla, senior project executive for Turner Construction of New York, the general contractor.

The project has involved a slate of environmental issues, such as significant site dewatering and replacement of the old terminal's hydrant fuel-delivery system.

"There's a high water table here, as well as a lot of contaminated soil," Lotfalla >> said. "We've worked with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to make sure everything meets the regulations."

The project also has unique historic preservation considerations related to the 44-year-old TWA terminal. The broader aim of the project, for which the Port Authority is providing $795 million of the cost, calls for incorporating Saarinen's building into the overall terminal complex.

Meanwhile, Port Authority officials, Turner, and Gensler, a San Francisco-based architect with New York offices, are working with aviation history experts to develop an adaptive reuse plan for the TWA building, an effort that is not part of the main Jet Blue terminal budget. Jet Blue has already agreed to install electronic check-in stations in the old terminal 5, while other potential uses include a museum, restaurants, and retail space.

The JFK slate also includes a pair of new parking structures. T. Moriarty and Sons of Brooklyn is scheduled to complete a $104 million, five-level, 2,000-space steel and precast concrete parking garage by Thanksgiving for American's new facility. And work on a 1,500-space structure for the Jet Blue Terminal was slated to start later this year under the design-build team of STV Inc. of New York and Peter Scalamandre and Sons of Freeport, N.Y.

Other big projects at JFK include the Port Authority's efforts to prepare airside facilities for the arrival of the supersized Airbus 380 and Boeing 787 models, both of which are expected to begin service within the next two years, with the 380 hauling up to 555 passengers and the 787 ferrying up to 330 travelers. The $179 million program includes strengthening the 90-ft. taxiway bridges over the Van Wyck and JFK expressways - which handle passenger vehicle traffic around the airport - with new decks and superstructures.

A major part of that airside upgrade program is a two-year, $65 million project to rehabilitate and realign 4 mi. of taxiways to handle the double-decker 380 and its 262-ft. wingspan. Conti Enterprises of South Plainfield, N.J., and Tully Contracting of Flushing, N.Y., passed the midway point this summer on that project, an effort complicated by the roughly 1,000 daily takeoffs and landings at JFK, said Rich Louis, director of the JFK redevelopment program for the Port Authority.

"Four mi. might not sound like much, but this is the main circulation route between the runways and terminals," he added. "There are probably about 40 phases to this project to ensure that we don't interfere with operations."