South Runway Project Lifts Fort Lauderdale Airport's Profile
This ambitious project replaced Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport’s original 5,300-ft runway by expanding and elevating it to an 8,000-ft-long, 150-ft-wide structure that extends over the existing airport perimeter road, Florida East Coast Railway and U.S. Highway 1. Contractors used a design-build methodology to deliver the elevated bridge and tunnel structure, which helps address the airport’s long-range development capacity goals.
The new runway construction required closure of the existing south runway, decommissioning of the crosswind runway and closing a significant portion of the taxing and staging airfield pavement area. These conditions reduced airport capacity to a single runway for a period of 18 months.