Dive Brief:
- The $8 billion capital expansion at LaGuardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York City, which will eventually connect all of the airport's terminals under one roof, has made significant progress, according to YIMBY New York, with at least one portion currently operational.
- Construction of the parking garage for the $4 billion Central Terminal B portion of the project is complete, and the facility opened to the public on Feb. 10, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, allowing parking lots near or in the path of construction to be closed. The garage connects to the old Terminal B, but a new walkway will connect to the new terminal when it opens in 2020. The headhouse, or the main section of Terminal B is still under construction, and Concourse B, which will feature new passenger gate areas, is entering the final stage of construction and should be open this year. Most of the façade has been put in place, but the elevated walkway that will connect it to the headhouse won't be open until 2020. Richard J. Smyth, redevelopment project executive for LaGuardia, indicated to Engineering News-Record that work on the new Concourse A would begin next year and be completed by 2022.
- Delta's construction managers, STV and Satterfield & Pontikes Construction, broke ground on the airline's new $4 billion terminal last year. Steelwork is in progress, and the foundations for the project's first concourse are finished. Two concourses, the main terminal and roadways will be complete in 2021, and Delta's last two terminals are scheduled to become operational in 2024 and 2026.
Dive Insight:
On Wednesday, Moody's Investors Services issued a new credit opinion on LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP), the private consortium that is part of the Central Terminal B expansion. In its report, Moody's said that the problems with the curtain wall system forced LGP to miss the 50% completion milestone for Concourse B. LGP was supposed to turn over half of the new concourse in May, but that has been delayed until September. Despite this minor setback, Moody's expects the project to reach substantial completion as scheduled, with Skanska USA and Walsh Construction leading the construction effort.
On major projects like the one in progress at LaGuardia, there are many moving parts, so the challenge is not only to perform the work on time and according to the specifications but also to keep passenger and airplane traffic flowing through the old portions of the airport.
This potential logistical nightmare is also a factor in road and highway projects, which is one of the reasons accelerated bridge construction (ABC) is so appealing. While the bridge is being built offsite, vehicular traffic can continue, fairly undisrupted, right up until the time the bridge is rolled in or trucked in for installation. The ABC method of bridge building is more expensive than traditional construction methods but can pay off in fewer commuter and business disruptions and fewer accidents in a less chaotic construction zone.
