The Inspiration in Finishing the $5B Salt Lake City Airport Rebuild

“It’s essential end.” That was Michael Williams’ parting message to his mates and staff constructing the brand new Salt Lake Metropolis Worldwide Airport, together with Brian Stetson and Kevin Fauvell. Even from the hospital, the place he died in Might, he centered on the job. Stetson, who changed Williams as director of the $5.2-billion capital program, remembers telling the staff: “We stated now we have a dedication to complete this program, and we do it for Mike. We are going to ship it the best way he laid out the plan. It’s our rally cry: Ship this factor.”

The dozen-year supply is nearly full, with about $370 million in building left to go. The fourth and closing part of the practically 300-acre greenfield airport is scheduled to complete in 2026. It consists of including 16 gates to the jap portion of Concourse B, bringing the overall variety of gates on the new airport to 94. Last parts of the third part are wrapping up, together with set up of jet bridges and paving.

Overcoming challenges resembling an earthquake, the pandemic and constructing atop an historical lakebed, crews are engaged on the final set of gates for the brand new airport.
Photograph courtesy of SLC Airport

The challenge’s 4 phases overlap, with staggered supply of parts. Section one, which completed in late 2020, included the 909,000-sq-ft central terminal constructing and western sections of the three,700-ft-long Concourse A and 4,300-ft-long Concourse B.

Section 2, accomplished in 2023, concerned demolishing the six-decade-old authentic airport, finishing the east portion of Concourse A, and starting work on the Central Tunnel (ENRMS 7-25/8-1/22, p.34). Main parts of the third part included completion of the 1,000-ft-long Central Tunnel connecting the 2 concourses, and a plaza for Concourse B, which all opened in fall 2024.

“We’re getting fairly near the tip of this system,” says Fauvell, challenge director for the three way partnership of Holder Development and Massive-D Development (HDJV). HDJV oversees varied points of the redevelopment, together with rental automotive services, the central terminal, Concourse A, the parking storage, roadways, tunnels, utilities and airfield paving below a building manager-at-risk (CMAR) contract. A three way partnership of Austin Industrial and Okland constructed Concourse B below an roughly $545-million CMAR contract.

“We’re opening up 5 gates this October,” says Fauvell of Section 4. The remaining 5 gates of Section 3 can even open this fall. “The remainder of the constructing will open in October subsequent 12 months and that would be the final main vertical building. We’ll be paving a bit by means of early 2027.”

In a closing large push, the final batches of gates for the brand new airport will open this October and the next fall.
Pictures courtesy of SLC Airport
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Stetson notes that key ancillary tasks embrace a baggage dealing with growth that features 7 miles of conveyer belts with 45-in. widths to accommodate oversize baggage resembling skis. “We’re adapting the system for anticipated progress,” he says. “We’re driving to finish this alongside the principle constructing.”

“We’re including a second screening space with tools and an related building baggage conveyor,” he provides. “The brand new inspection station can be redundant to the principle system and provides extra screening functionality for oversize baggage. It’ll occur together with the remainder of the services in 2026.”

A 34,000-sq-ft Delta Air Strains lounge and a 16,000-sq-ft American Categorical lounge can even open this fall.

The greenfield airport consists of a brand new most important terminal and two concourses, for which new gates are constructed and opened in phases from 2020 by means of 2026.
Pictures courtesy of SLC Airport
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Phasing Out

Section 2 parts included a six-month demolition of the previous airport. Out of 280,000 tons of ensuing materials, 85% was reused on web site. Concrete was floor into onsite backfill materials whereas metal and different parts have been despatched to offsite recycling vegetation.

Total building included floor stabilization measures to accommodate SLC’s location in a seismically energetic former lakebed. A whole bunch of 3-ft-dia holes, specified by 10-ft by 10-ft grids and drilled 45-ft deep, have been pressure-filled with small stones to forestall liquefaction within the occasion of an earthquake, such because the magnitude 5.7 occasion that rattled Salt Lake Metropolis in March 2020.

The constructing and tunnels are based on a mix of pushed composite and H-piles, averaging depths of 65 ft to 75 ft. The south concourse extension comprises an estimated 5,800 tons of rebar structural metal and 17,657 cu yd of concrete, whereas the Section 3 extension to the north concourse would require 3,000 tons of metal and eight,500 cu yd of concrete. Section 4 entails 15,900 tons of metal and 79,500 cu yd of concrete.

Constructed by cut-and-cover, the 106,140-sq-ft Central Tunnel contains “the River”—a membrane sculpture made up of particular person aluminum-framed “fins” wrapped with a cloth materials. A playlist of songs chosen by artist Gordon Huether supplies an ambient expertise for individuals touring between Concourses A and B. The sculpture is one in every of many artworks built-in all through the airport.

The artist Gordon Huether’s works have been built-in into the airport building for over a decade, together with clockwise from prime, the Peaks (2023), Northern Gentle (2024), the Canyon (2024) and the River Tunnel (2024). The latter connects Concourses A and B and contains ambient sound.
Pictures courtesy of Gordon Huether
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With a water desk simply 7 ft beneath the floor, crews utilized sheet piles and a dewatering system to excavate 65 ft deep. Separate tunnel cells accommodate high-speed baggage methods, central utility plant distribution and the long run addition of an on-air automated individuals mover along with the six shifting walkways.

The 22 gates of the Concourse A extension opened in spring and fall of 2023. The staggered opening of Concourse B’s Section 3 gates in 2024 and this 12 months are enabling the airport to part out the final of its short-term “hardstand” operations, the place passengers entry parked plane by way of shuttles. When the remaining gates of Concourse B’s east aspect extension open, the brand new airport could have a complete of 94 gates able to accommodate progress. The airport had a record-setting 28,364,610 passengers in 2024, representing a 4% enhance from 2023.

These passengers skilled an array of art work on the airport, a lot of it created by Huether in an ongoing job order contract that started on the outset of the brand new airport building.

Michael Williams, 72, was ‘Visionary’ for SLC Airport

Williams

Michael Williams, Salt Lake Metropolis Worldwide Airport’s redevelopment program director, who challenge officers confirmed died Might 12 of most cancers at 72, emphasised the significance of a really built-in staff and “an proprietor who’s concerned day-to-day,” ENR wrote in naming him one in every of its High 25 Newsmakers in 2022.

A veteran of transportation tasks for over 4 many years who had led the hassle since 2012, he “actually drove this program and impressed us to be the place we’re proper now,” says Brian Stetson, who succeeds him as program director.

Employed by Salt Lake Metropolis airport as an impartial program director, Williams created the plan to demolish all three concourses concurrently whereas protecting the gate depend excessive sufficient to serve passengers—an innovation that sped up this system’s second part by practically two years. Section 1 opened below funds in 2020.

Stetson notes Williams’ means to debate complicated challenge particulars with C-suite executives and different high-level stakeholders—and an hour late, rap with web site employees about tile set up. “He was such an enormous a part of the challenge and my very own profession,” says Kevin Fauvell, vice chairman of Holder Development, who labored with Williams for 16 years. “He touched a whole lot of lives.”

Williams’ airport megaproject administration abilities have been honed from prior roles on the $1.4-billion worldwide terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Worldwide Airport and the $508-million Terminal A Redevelopment at Boston Logan Worldwide Airport.

“Mike was a legend,” says Gordon Huether, who labored with Williams from the start to include his art work into the SLC program. “He was an advocate, a champion, a visionary. I don’t consider the airport could be what it’s with out him being on the helm.”

By Aileen Cho

Flights of Fancy

Artwork and structure have been built-in from the start of the rebuild, “whether or not we offered the backdrop for the artwork, or visa versa,” says Brian Cook dinner, principal and observe chief for the Salt Lake Metropolis workplace of HOK, the lead designer. “We labored seamlessly to enrich one another.”

For instance, HOK helped modify store drawings for such installations as “Canyon 2.0,” “Northern Gentle” and “the Falls” to make sure constructability, says Huether. As consulting artist for the airport, he helped curate the artwork assortment, working with HOK to map out the place every of the 135 chosen artwork items could be displayed. He additionally assisted within the collection of the artwork ideas for the Whimsy Partitions, which adorn 24 restroom partitions within the consolidated terminals, and designed and put in the brand new SLC Artwork Wall, situated within the safety screening space. Moreover, he oversaw the refurbishment and reinstallation of present iconic airport installations resembling “You Are Right here,” “World Map” and “Flying Machines.”

The installations are building tasks in and of themselves. For instance, the Hoberman Arch is a 72-ft-wide x 36-ft-high mechanical curtain that was initially put in for the Medals Plaza in downtown Salt Lake Metropolis for the 2002 Olympics. The semi-circular aluminum construction weighs round 31,000 lb and contains 4,000 items put collectively as 96 related panels with 13,000 metal rivets. The panels differ in dimension with the biggest being 5-ft huge x 9-ft excessive.

In some unspecified time in the future, the arch ended up disassembled and deserted in a yard, says Huether. “There have been lacking items. It was a Humpty Dumpty second.” Working with the unique artist, Huether’s crews fabricated the elements and rebuilt the arch.

Equally, You Are Here’s a stained glass window that after hung within the previous worldwide terminal and in addition required new parts and a brand new aluminum body.

“Now we have a community of execs in numerous fields resembling a structural engineer out of Phoenix and a fabricator in Germany,” says Huether. “I put a cardboard mannequin on the desk, and so they take it from there. What materials may it’s? What sort of bolts, welds, plates, foundations? Then we deliver [the model] to the airport [construction and design teams] for peer evaluation.”

In 2023, the airport unveiled his 10-story-high art work “the Peak,” which stands on the airport entrance. The 90-ft-tall, 75-ton weathered metal set up evokes the Wasatch mountains, Utah’s 5 Indigenous tribes and the 5 parts.

Cable-suspended sculptures of three,000 swallows and airplanes will adorn the ends of Concourse B after set up this summer season and subsequent 12 months, says Huether. He estimates that this system contains some $30 million value of funding in his art work over the previous decade.

The brand new airport’s artwork installations, together with Huether’s the Falls (2020) (backside proper) mirror its location, which incorporates the Wasatch Mountains.
Pictures: (High left and proper) HOK, Bruce Damonte; (decrease left) courtesy of SLC Airport; (Backside Proper) The Falls by Gordon Huether, courtesy Salt Lake Metropolis Worldwide Airport
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Public artwork in airports is “a part of a pattern to make airports greater than processors of individuals and luggage,” says Stanis Smith, a strategic guide and former govt with Stantec. “The main airports perceive {that a} pleased passenger is unstressed and in an atmosphere they get pleasure from being in. With much less stress, they’re extra prone to [spend money at airport concessions].”

Furthermore, airports compete for passenger visitors and “wish to differentiate themselves,” he provides. An instance is the Changi Airport in Singapore, which is likely one of the busiest airports on the planet regardless of its location in a small city-state. Resulting from its points of interest, “passengers select to attach by means of Changi.”

Toni Sikes, founder and CEO of CODAworx, a tech platform that connects artists and shoppers, notes that the $19-billion program to rebuild New York Metropolis’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport contains $25 million for public artwork—built-in from the start similar to in SLC. “Art work generally is a wayfinder at airports,” she notes. “A sculpture is the place individuals can meet up.”

Smith, whose shoppers embrace JFK Airport, provides that one of many JFK installations has complicated geometry, and “the contractor is nice at doing mockups on web site, serving to us coordinate and combine. A number of it is vitally detailed work.”

Sikes agrees, noting that one in every of her firm’s books on public artwork showcases examples at varied airports. “To do these main items requires fabrication and set up,” she says. “Know-how can be concerned. Inventive engineers wish to be working with artists, and artists are actually turning into concerned in infrastructure tasks.”