Airport Projects Aim to Ease Congestion for Passengers and Airlines
Projects at Portland International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac Airport) will allow the facilities to handle more passengers and give them a better experience.
Port of Portland
The Port of Portland is building a $166-million, seven-story, 1.2 million sq ft, 3,500-car parking deck topped with an $85-million, three-story, 205,500 sq ft port headquarters building at Portland International Airport. The project will consolidate 473 of the port�s 700 employees at one location.
�We�re combining marine and aviation operations all in one location, and we realized for some years we would need more parking at the airport,� says Martha Richmond, a port spokesperson. The Portland airport had record-setting passenger traffic from July 2007 to June 2008, with 14.8 million people enplaning and deplaning. That dropped to 13.3 million in 2008-2009. The port authority funded the garage with a combination of working capital and revenues from parking, rental car, air cargo and other collections at the airport.
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects of Portland designed the project. Hoffman Construction Co. of Portland began construction in 2007. Crews excavated 66,000 cu yds of dirt.
The team seeks LEED-gold certification. Green features include a Living Machine, an organic wastewater treatment plant that will treat water for nonpotable uses, such as flushing toilets. The plant is designed to treat 5,000 gallons per day.
A geothermal system with 200 wells, reaching depths of 300 ft, will help to heat and cool the building. An atrium will bring daylighting into the office building’s core. The project’s close proximity to the Columbia River required a pile foundation, with 1,600 16-in.-diameter, vibratory steel piles. Because the work was taking place next to a control tower, the contractor had to coordinate pile-driving operations with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The structural-steel frame headquarters portion of the building sits atop the north half of the post-tensioned concrete garage. The project required 50,000 cu yds of concrete, 6,500 tons of rebar, 2.2 million ft of post-tension cable and 1,400 tons of structural steel.
“One challenge was avoiding a visual obstruction of the runway with the crane,” says Dave Garske, project manager for Hoffman. “We had to make sure we were not creating an unsafe situation” for the air-traffic controllers.
Hoffman broke the construction into two halves, completing the north parking deck first. An expansion joint in the garage enabled the company to phase the work.
“We needed to get the construction of the headquarters going as fast as we could,” Garske says. “There was so much detail with the glazing, LEED and mechanical. It was critical to get that going.”
Hoffman anticipates completion in April 2010. Because the port has sold its existing building, Garske says the finish date cannot slip.
In May, the Port of Portland began the first, $20-million, six-month phase of a $63.5-million project that will extend and rehabilitate the north runway. Wildish Standard Paving of Eugene, Ore., will lengthen the runway from 8,000 ft to 9,827 ft, so it can handle large passenger and cargo aircraft, including international flights.
Sea-Tac Rental Care Facility
Turner Construction Co. of Seattle is building a $350-million, 2.1 million sq ft, 5,400-vehicle Rental Car Facility with quick turn-around areas at Sea-Tac. The project consumes nearly the entire 23-acre site.
The total budget is $419.3 million, which includes a bus maintenance shop, road improvements and changes at the main terminal to accommodate the shuttle buses that will take passengers to and from the rental car facility. The bus maintenance facility will be bid in early 2010 as a separate project.
“The consolidated center will take the offsite companies and the larger ones [now with locations in the airport] and put them in one spot,” says Perry Cooper, spokesperson for the airport.
Walker Parking Consultants of Elgin, Ill., is managing design.
A customer facility charge added to every car rental will pay for nearly the entire cost of the project.
The project broke ground in June 2008. But the Port of Seattle suspended the job in December, with the project 17% complete, due to the turmoil in the financial markets. Turner kept about 25 people on staff to...
