Salt Lake International Airport Development Thread
 

The demolition and reconstruction of the airport — to begin sometime in 2013 and planned to take place in phases — is expected to take between eight and ten years at a cost of $1.8 billion.

The airport is currently the westernmost hub in the United States for Delta Air Lines, whose flights account for almost three-quarters of the traffic at the airport.

Interestingly, the remodeled airport would have only one terminal and twelve fewer gates than it does now. Portions of the current airport — such as Terminal 1 and Concourses A and B — have been around as long as 50 years.

Websites to follow the latest of this billion dollar redevelopment.
http://www.slcairport.com/TRP-Progress_Gallery.asp
http://www.hdjvteam.com/

http://www.sltrib.com/csp/cms/sites/...YPE=image/jpeg
SLC Tribune


http://www.deseretnews.com/images/ar...685/729685.jpg
Deseret News

http://i.imgur.com/ViVfN.png

Next, we should be hearing more about the airport project sometime this summer where we hope we will finally see some renderings. :yes:

Stay tuned.

Very nice, Salt Lake City! This is a great project and the hub operation will be much more efficient as a result. Can't wait to see it built out. :)

Wow! I love the idea of just one terminal to handle all traffic instead of several. Strange though how the new airport will have 12 FEWER gates... Is SLC in its present state overbuilt and significantly under capacity? My past experiences there would suggest otherwise...

:previous:Terminal A is usually a ghost town.

As far as I know, these new gates will be much more versatile than the ones today. Thus, there won't be a need for as many of them.

My understanding is that although the new airport will have fewer gates, the new gates are designed to be much more efficient, enabling smoother and quicker boardings and resulting in a net increase in the number of daily flights that can be handled at SLC.

The biggest reason for less gates is that as fuel prices stay high it makes more economic sense to ditch high frequency with smaller jets and replace them with less frequency on larger ones -- SkyWest is shedding the E-120 and cutting back on their fleet of 50-seater jets which will mean a net reduction in frequency in favor of CRJ-700s/900s, and so the need for gates will be less.

SLC at its current state is designed to accomodate approxiately 10 million passengers per year. Right now, SLC handles 21-22 million passengers per year.

Besides outgrowing the current facility, seismic safety reasons and aging facilities is a a major factor in the need for a new terminal. SLC has also greatly outgrown its customs and immigration facilties.

Concourse A is packed and standing room only several times a day. Depends on what time of day you are there.


The reason for the 12 fewer gates is this...

Right now all of concourse E can only accomodate commuter aircraft. 28 parking spots (give or take) just for small aircraft. The new terminal will eliminate commuter specific parking spots and all gates on the new concourse will be able to handle any size aircraft, whether large mainline or a small commuter plane. Meaning each gate will be utilized more often, and fewer gates will sit idle when not used. So in actuallity, the airport will be able to handle more flights with fewer gates. Much more efficient and cost saving. Plus there are future phases of expansion which will be able to add several additional gates as necessary.


Just on a side note, as of right now the new UTA station/ welcome center is well under construction and should be finished this summer/fall. This is a temporary station until the new terminal is built. The future station will be located at the future parking garage, elevated on the second level and adjacent to the new terminal.

The new food court in terminal 2 opened last week and has Cafe Rio, Greek Souvlaki, and McDonalds. It is a very nice food court. I'll try and get some pics. Other food establishments and stores continue to open on a regular basis as old ones are renovated and new ones opened. A new Starbucks (the airport's fourth Starbucks) opened in the terminal two lobby a couple weeks ago. Wendy's should be open next week. Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta, Smash Burger, and Gordon Biersch Brewery are also under construction. Vino Volo Ale House, Manchu Wok, and one of the Seattle's Best coffe's will be opening soon as will the airport's 2nd U food Grill (on C concourse) and Pink Berry. Market Street Grill should start construction within the next month or so.

Edit: New terminal 2 food court pics

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-9...0/IMG_1013.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...0/IMG_1014.JPG

Do you know how many the redesigned airport will accomodate?

Also, i like that there is a Cafe Rio in the new food court. It adds a little local flavor

Where, in Terminal 2, is the new food court located?

I don't have the exact number in front of me, but initially, I believe 25-30 million. In future expansion phases, that can easily be increased.

When the airport asked for proposals for the food and retail redevelopment program, they specifically wanted to include more local stores and restaurants. Cafe Rio, Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta, and Greek Souvlaki are among them. Also you will find a Utah's Own store, a Sam Weller's Books (not completed yet), Deseret Newsstand, KSL newsstand, Millcreek Coffee, and more Utah related gift shops. Squatters (a local brewery), which has been at the airport for many years, renovated late last year and remains a popular airport restaurant. And as mentioned, Market Street Grill will start renovating an existing restaurant soon.

You can see the full list here:

http://slcairport.com/cmsdocuments/P...ns_halfway.pdf

The new food court is actually a renovated food court. It is the one in between C and D concourse, near the Delta Sky Club.

That's fantastic. :tup:

When I was reading about the Airport redevelopment a few months back I remember them talking about adding additional concourses in the future connected by a tram (similar to Denver) but that is probably 10-20 years out still.

What I like about this plan is the expansion potential compared to what currently exists.

If I'm not mistaken the underground tunnel to connect the concourses is already in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong Skyguy.

There is a tunnel in place, yes. Originally, the west end of a second north parallel concourse was to be built as part of phase one. It was determined that building the new terminal, the new main concourses and renovating current B, C, and D concourse would be more cost effective. The parallel concourse will be built in a future phase (and B, C, and D demolished) or possibly sooner should it be needed. Ultimately it will be the terminal and two long parallel concourses. But that is years away.

If the entire north concourse were to be built (and when it is), there would actually be three underground tunnels to connect to the main concourse and terminal. One of the west end, one in the center, and one on the east end. The center tunnel would have an underground people mover train and the other two would have moving walkways. The tunnel that has already been built is the west tunnel. Right now it's just sitting there until its needed.

Here are some pics of the UTA station under construction. Kind of mess now, but give it a couple months.

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m_...C0E361AA55.JPG

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-10...E7F24BEAB7.JPG

And lastly, a picture I took last night of the beautiful sunset. I wish I had something better than my phone to capture it.

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Kq...79FEF6A3BD.JPG

I'm just curious, what's your job?

John,

PM sent to you.

The new Airport is going to be awasome!
It will help bring in a lot of construction jobs!:banana::banana::banana:

If I`m not mistaken, the $1.8 Billion price tag is about the same as City Creek. That really is a big investment!

About the same, and this is only the first phase. Who knows how much phase II will cost.

Judging from the graphic above the costs could be broken out two different ways:

Phase I - $ 1.249 Billion
Phase II - $ 1.494 Billion
Phase III - $ 1.574 Billion
Phase IV - $ 1.797 Billion

Total - $ 6.114 Billion

... or if you look at the amounts as cummulative:

Phase I - $ 1.249 Billion
Phase II - $ 245 Million
Phase III - $ 80 Million
Phase IV - $ 223 Million

Total - $ 1.797 Billion

Knowing how government spending works... probably scenario one....

From what I've read, I believe it is cumulative, plus when you look what is being built in each phase, I'm quite certain it's cumulative.

These 4 stages are phase 1 and together cost a total of 1.8 billion. Its the next phase where they add a satellite concourse to the North that will be parallel that will be phase 2. I would imagine that the parallel concourse will not cost as much since they wont be building roadways, parking garages, customs, security or terminals. It will mainly be docking ports for airplains and have food and shopping zones.

Yes, the $1.8 billion figure is just for phase 1. Once phase two goes into the planning stages, it will havea separate budget.

Here is a rough image of what the othere phases habve added.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3...2/Picture1.jpg

I know we are years and years away from the full build out, but I think it will be great when it's finished!

This is becoming a very familiar layout due to its positive effectiveness; ATL, DEN, IAD, Bradley Terminal LAX, other airports around the World...

Question: Would this be thread for posting of SLC route updates?

I know people have posted them in the Transportation, or is it Transit, thread in the past, but this thread would make complete sense. IMO

I would agree.

Does anyone (or know of anyone) on this thread and /or forum who is employeed by Delta Airlines?

So, I've just begun following this plan, but something confuses me. In the four stages image on the first post, it seems like the layout is never one long straight hallway, but in other images (like the one showing a future north concourse), those little branches aren't there. Are we getting rid of the little branches off of a main concourse or not?

Sorry if I'm not using correct terminology; I'm not too familiar with airport admin.

Phase I, the blue drawing, will consist of the "South Concourse Building" and the renovated existing B (most of it), C, and D.

Phase II, the yellow drawing, will remove the B, C and D and add the "North Concourse Building" This is a future plan with no timeline set for construction.

Haven't seen this posted yet. The Draft Environmental Assessment is out. I haven't had time to look at it too closely yet, but there seem to be some interesting nuggets in there, like discussions of alternate locations for the terminal, etc. Page 40 has some cool drawings of terminal redevelopment proposals that have been suggested over the past 30 years. The link:
http://www.slcairport.com/TRP-EnvAss.asp

Salt Lake Airport can now spend money on rebuilding

ksl.com

http://img.ksl.com/slc/2499/249955/2...=ksl/story_635

SALT LAKE CITY — Airport officials have a green light to begin spending money on design and engineering for the redevelopment of Salt Lake City International Airport.


The Salt Lake City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday night promising to reimburse the airport for capital expenses on the planned $1.8 billion airport rebuild. The city likely will use bond funds to reimburse the airport, though city officials don't plan to issue any bonds before 2014.


Roughly one-third of the project's price tag will be covered by the airport's cash reserves.


article continued...
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=20913103&nid...&s_cid=queue-7

Can't wait to see the final designs. Exciting stuff!

Salt Lake airport still best for on-time arrivals, departures


THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE


First Published Jul 10 2012 12:47 pm • Last Updated Jul 10 2012 08:22 pm

Salt Lake City International Airport once again has been rated by the U.S. Department of Transportation as the best airport in the country for on-time arrivals.

The agency reported Tuesday that during the first five months of the year 89.84 percent of all flights into Salt Lake City arrived on time, an improvement over the same five-month period last year when the airport topped the national list with an on-time arrival rate of 82.44 percent.

article continued...http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/5...ights.html.csp



On a side note...the UTA welcome center/station is nearing completion, I will try and get some pics. Some new high-quality Italian-made tile is being installed in parts of the airport to test for how it does with high foot traffic. It will possibly be used in the new terminal if it tests well. New carpeting is currently being installed throughout the airport.

New stores and restaurants are opening weekly. Smash Burger, Gordon Biersch Brewery, and Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta in particular will be opening within weeks. Several of the new restaurants are very popular and getting good feedback.

A Japanese television show which features the operations of airports from around the world and their surrounding communities filmed in SLC recently and will air a one hour episode highlighting SLC airport and some surrounding attractions sometime in the next few months. I had the pleasure of escorting the film crew around the airport.

SLC Route Updates
 

Delta will discontinue to more international routes. Mexico City service will cease September 4, 2012 and Gadalajara service will cease January 2013.

Southwest will cease service to Reno /Tahoe on January 6, 2013.

I thought for certain Delta would expand their SLC hub after its merger with Northwest therefore build upon international routes to Asia. There have been other reductions of service in the past. Could the reduction in service delay the improvements /additions relative to SLC's master plan?

:previous:
That sucks. Makes me wonder why we even have a international center when it never gets used and when ever we add international routes they just end up getting discontinued later on.

Does anyone know the frequency that the discontinued flights were operating at?

That might give us a better view of the possible impact that these losses will have.

I just flew into Salt Lake from Mexico City with delta yesterday. It was very convenient and packed. Why would they cut it?

Aren't those Delta flights seasonal anyway? I think they always just ran during the summer months.

Now my sources are conflicting so I just went to Delta's website and could not find any direct flights to either city after the end dates. I will call them to confirm as well. (Embarassed)

Dont't lose any sleep over this yet. Stay tuned.

I do apologize for the confusing info I previously posted. :brickwall:

The Mexico schedules fluctuate all the time. The "discontinuation" will likely just be temporary for the slow months and brought back. They just haven't completed the winter or spring schedules yet. Has happened pretty much every year.

Originally meant to put this in this forum.

Thanks for the update Skyguy. I am really happy to hear about Boeing expanding their facilities here.

Boeing still has job openings in SLC according to their site.

http://jobs-boeing.com/salt-lake-city-jobs

I was at the airport today to pick up my dad. Trax line looks great.

Accidentally scraped a lady's car as I was trying to park and when she asked to see my ID, I notice that my driver's license has been expired for 3 months!!!! I had no clue! I never look at my DL. I assumed I would receive a notice in the mail or something. Sheesh.

Sounds like you had a wonderful day. :D

I just went through this. Went to get a wristband up at the Kimball Arts Festival a couple weekends ago, and was denied because of an expired license. I had no idea!!!

Noticing that your DL has expired isn't even the worst part. It's having to spend a day at the DMV. I will never understand why the state can't or won't open more DMVs though out the metro. And why the hell did they built that one clear the hell out in draper? That is a bad place to have it way out in BFE.

It's not the DMV you need to visit for a DL. It's the Driver's License Division. That can be even worse! I've already visited the one in Orem to renew my license, but they didn't like the birth certificate that I had. This is a new requirement since I got my DL last, so now I have to go through more red tape to get a certified copy of my BC from Connecticut. Uggh.

At least they gave me a temporary license that lasts 6 months.