Turner, Flatiron win $700M Denver airport expansion contract

Dive Brief:

Turner Construction and Flatiron Construction have been selected to oversee a $700 million expansion of Denver International Airport (DIA), according to The Construction Index.
The project includes the addition of 16 new gates, two international hubs — with the capacity for three more — and additional pavement. In total, the work will see Concourse A grow by more than 530,000 square feet and Concourse B add 91,000 square feet.
The joint venture between Turner and Flatiron, both subsidiaries of German construction company Hochtief, is scheduled to start work this month.

Dive Insight:

The Turner-Flatiron contract is one of four, five-year contracts related to the airport's near-$1.5 billion expansion, all of which were approved at a Denver City Council meeting in November, according to the Denver Business Journal. Jacobs Engineering and HNTB Corp each won a $65 million contract for the design and engineering of 39 new gates, and the council awarded the joint venture of Holder-FCI a $655 million contract for pre-construction and new gate construction.

Airport officials said small and disadvantaged businesses will perform up to 18% of the project's design work and up to 24% of construction.

The gate expansion is part of the airport's five-year, $3.5 billion capital plan that is separate from the $1.8 billion renovation and management deal with Spanish company Ferrovial that the city council approved in August. That public-private partnership (P3) includes the $650 million renovation of DIA's Jeppesen Terminal and a $1.2 billion concession management agreement that includes fees and capital repayments. The city of Denver and Ferrovial will share startup costs, and the project will be financed with airport revenue.

DIA and other U.S. airports are undertaking massive renovations to beef up security, introduce modern features like automated self-ticketing kiosks, and to match their capacity with increased passenger traffic. According to the International Air Transport Association, global passenger demand grew 8% in November 2017 from the year before and 6.4% in North America during that same time period.

New York City's area airports routinely place in the top 20 of the nation's busiest. All three — Liberty International in Newark, NJ, and John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia in New York City — are either in the midst of or are planning large-scale renovations.

LaGuardia Gateway Partners, under a P3, is completing a $4 billion replacement of LaGuardia's Central Terminal B, and Delta is also building a new $4 billion terminal there. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are planning a $10 billion redevelopment of JFK, and officials broke ground in June on a $2.4 billion terminal renovation at Liberty.