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By the end of the summer, officials at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Montgomery, Ala., should be enjoying a well-deserved swagger. The airport's ongoing expansion and renovation project is two-thirds of the way along with a scheduled completion in August.
The timing of the project couldn't be better.
Mark Wnuk, executive assistant to the director of the Montgomery Airport Authority, said redesign efforts began in earnest about the same time the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce and local government officials began courting a major manufacturer.
"We now know that the company was Hyundai," he said.
The Korean-based company opened its Montgomery assembly plant, the first in the United States, in May. The influx of air travelers generated by this industry alone has justified the need for upgrading the city's airport facilities.
"This is the front door to the city and there's been a sense that we could look like and be a better airport," Wnuk said. "The last major renovations took place back in the 1970s. We had a functional airport, but it was starting to show its age."
The airport renovations got off the ground with the strong support of Sen. Richard Shelby, who had been through the Montgomery airport on several occasions and recognized its limitations. Financing is being provided through federal grants and Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) taxes.
The project was designed in three stand-alone phases, Wnuk said. If unforeseen circumstances - such as a funding shortage - were to temporarily halt construction, a logical stopping point could be reached. But Phases 1 and 2 have been successfully completed, and Phase 3 is well underway.
Overseeing the project are independent construction manager Burrel Shewmake and project manager Frank Montgomery of JESCO Inc.
"This city has needed this," Shewmake said of the multi-million dollar undertaking.
Phase 1, completed in mid-July 2004 at a cost of $6.6 million, involved adding a new second story passenger hold room, a new baggage area, a covered tug area and two new jet bridges. The addition also included three new elevators and two new escalators to the second floor hold room and new apron paving.
Phase 2, which Wnuk said overlapped somewhat with Phase 1, was completed at the end of May for nearly $5.6 million. The phase involved the completion of a new first floor hold room, a new jet bridge and extensive renovations to the existing terminal, including new air conditioning, new lighting, a new ceiling and new carpet. A two-story glass atrium was added to the lobby area, as were two new vestibules at the terminal entrance.
Also during Phase 2, the old concourse and control tower were demolished and additional extensive apron paving was done.
"A good bit of demolition in the terminal was involved in Phase 2," said Shewmake. "All the old ceilings were taken out, walls were changed around and the building had to be fireproofed."
Phase 3 will cost a projected $14 million and will include an impressive new rotunda entrance into the terminal and rerouting the access road to the terminal.
"This phase changes everything," said Shewmake.
The security checkpoint will move to the second floor of the rotunda and a new jet bridge and second floor hold room will be added. The clerestory added in Phase 2 will be continued across to Phase 3.
"A lot of the old building is here, but most of it you wouldn't recognize," Montgomery said. "For instance, we did have a north-south orientation to the concourse, but we're reorienting it east to west."
None of the materials used in the renovation are unusual, he said. But the end result will be something that the city has never seen.
"The terminal is basically a concrete slab with a steel structure and normal footings," he added. "The exterior brick will be matched all across, and there's a lot of glass.
"The interior is mainly open space with a lot of dry wall work. The rotunda is going to have a plaster ceiling with a special lighting system, and we'll have terrazzo floors in the circular area of the entryway. I think it will be fairly unique, at least to Montgomery."
But the renovations have not happened without some inconveniences on the part of airport employees and travelers.
"This airport has had to stay in operation 100 percent the entire time - airlines, car rentals, everything," Shewmake said. "We could not shut this facility down for several years to get the job done."
Wnuk likened the challenge of working in the midst of the construction to living on the first floor of a home to which a second story is being added.
"I believe we underestimated what it would be like, but we had to accommodate it," he said. "It has been daunting at times. I mean eventually, you have to shut off things like water, power and emergency generators to switch over. And with an airport, you're talking about runway lights and lighting for the terminal."
Another major consideration has been security issues, which since Sept. 11, 2001, have complicated matters at airports under the best of circumstances.
"Security is something that had to be incorporated into the planning phase," Wnuk said. "There is a police department at the airport and security measures were already in place. But we had to think about a new system, cameras, software and other equipment. And some of the initial plans had to be re-designed because of security concerns."
Both Wnuk and Shewmake briefly said a Phase 4 is possible, but emphasized that plans have not moved beyond the talking stages.
"We could continue moving west," said Wnuk. "But we're just in the earliest thinking of 'Where do we go from here©'"
Shewmake labeled the potential for Phase 4 "very preliminary," but said such a phase might include ticket counters for additional airlines, another hold room and a new jet bridge.
The architectural firms of Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon Inc., and Reynolds, Smith & Hills Inc., jointly designed Phases 1 and 2 of the Montgomery Regional Airport renovations. The Barge firm designed Phase 3.
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