With space at such a premium that a parking lot was converted into a construction staging site, two design-build teams are squeezing improvements and a new terminal into San Diego International Airport, one of the world's busiest single-runway airports.
San Diego County Regional Airport Authority's $1-billion "green-build" program includes a 445,000-sq-ft expansion of Terminal 2 to accommodate 19 gates instead of nine. It also includes two new 17,000-sq-ft curbside ticket lobbies, called smart curbs, a transit center doubled in size to 2,000 linear ft, an elevated departure roadway, six overpasses, and new roads and parking lots—all crammed into a 650-acre space. The airport expects to handle up to 33 million annual passengers by 2030, but it is landlocked by the ocean and inland development.