Dive Brief:
- Denver International Airport (DEN) has introduced a new online feature for its $770 million Great Hall project — a project dashboard that will help officials keep the public updated on Phase I construction progress and its budget.
- The new feature is designed to provide transparency and share progress with the community, according to DEN CEO Kim Day. Last fall, the airport canceled its $1.8 billion public-private partnership with Ferrovial-led Great Hall Partners (GHP) and took over the project.
- Each area of the project will be labeled on the dashboard as to whether it is meeting expectations, within the estimated threshold or over the threshold. The airport will update the dashboard every month.
Dive Insight:
DEN chose not to replace GHP with another P3 but instead went with a more traditional approach with Hensel Phelps taking over as construction manager and general contractor under a $195 million services contract. Hensel Phelps' contract is set to expire Dec. 31, 2021, at which time airport officials expect Phase I to be operational.
Day said in a statement that after the change in partners, DEN made a commitment to project transparency and that the dashboard is part of that promise. It will focus on five areas:
- The schedule and important milestones, which include construction of a TSA central monitoring facility and new ticket pods.
- Construction costs.
- Minority- and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) participation.
- Workforce program.
- Safety performance.
According to the July 2020 dashboard, all areas of the project are meeting expectations or are within the threshold. The project has completed 3.6% of the Phase I schedule; spent 1% ($1.6 million) of the Phase I budget; is on track to meet its apprenticeship goals as far as the number of outreach events and the percentage of hours worked; is close to its targeted MWBE goals for design and construction; and has had no time lost to safety incidents out of the 10,648 hours worked so far.
Other jurisdictions and agencies offer online systems that allow the public to monitor taxpayer-funded projects. Some examples are New York City's Capital Projects Dashboard, the Georgia Department of Transportation's searchable project map and the city of Franklin, Tennessee's operations dashboard.
