http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...re-concessions

Council committee OKs Westfield for O’Hare concessions
By: John Pletz July 21, 2011

The long-delayed contract to operate retail and food concessions at O’Hare Airport’s international terminal is headed for a City Council vote next week.

...The city is looking for the developers to overhaul Terminal 5, including moving the concessions to the other side of security gates, where travelers will have more time to shop before boarding their flights. The city hopes to more than double annual revenue from about $26 million now.

The revamp envisioned by the city will require an investment of at least $20 million from the developer.

^ Good news. I often hear complaints about the lack of options gateside in T5.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,6039464.story

City: New runway over former cemetery expected to open at end of 2013
By Jon Hilkevitch
7:10 PM CDT, October 27, 2011

About 75 percent of the graves blocking a new runway under construction at O’Hare International Airport will have been removed by the end of the week, and the runway is scheduled for completion by December 2013, O’Hare expansion officials said Thursday.

...

Exhumations will hit the 900 mark this week, said Jim Chilton, an official with DMJM Aviation Partners who is the program manager for the O’Hare Modernization Program.

Chilton spoke at a conference presented Thursday by the Eno Transportation Foundation and the city focusing on lessons learned during the first phase of O’Hare expansion.

The $8.6 billion project began in 2005, and so far only one new runway has opened and an existing runway was lengthened.

The “cemetery runway,’’ as runway 10 Center/28 Center is informally called, is set to open in two years, followed next by a far southern runway in 2016 10 Right/28 Left, which will be built on the site of more than 400 homes that the city demolished in Bensenville.

...

e-letter via Chicago Department of Aviation

............

The solar panels are a great way for the city to earn a bit of money on unused patches of O'Hare land while offsetting the massive carbon emissions of the airport.

Agreed. And hopefully the term "massive installation" actually means a massive installation, not just a single acre of panels.

^ The article specifically calls for 60 acres.

Why indeed it does, can't believe I missed that... thanks.

Interesting article. This company has vastly streamlined the construction of retaining walls - they completely grade-separated the freight line through downtown Wichita in under 2 years for less than $100 million. That's about 2 miles of work with 5 streets passing beneath. It's like Legos.

It's a really cool system, and they design whatever finish you want. Usually this means fake stone, but I guess you could do whatever you want.

The O'Hare project will look similar to this Tollway wall in Elgin:
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/957...55wallla2l.jpg

^ I'm curious to know just what alignment the new line will follow. In fact, same goes for Irving Park Road - it has to duck underneath the far south runway but it's not clear where or how. Will the rail line instead follow the other freight line alignment already skirting the airfield's outside border? Most OMP layout diagrams aren't specific about this ground infrastructure, despite the importance of the road access to USPS and other air freight facilities to be landlocked between runways.

Incidentally, just how does one square following Railway Track & Structures Monthly, and all the rest, with studies and La Dolce Vita?

Nothing will pass beneath the runways. UP will be pressed as close to the CP alignment as possible. Irving Park will go underneath them both just east of York, and then follow right on the north side of the tracks. There were several options for depressing the York/Irving Park intersection (mostly having to do with the degree of access to businesses) but I'm not sure which one IDOT chose.

To answer your second question: I spend a ton of time in studio (not much sleep) and I need something to read during breaks. RTandS is in my blog reader so I check it for Chicago stories occasionally. Don't worry, I'm still enjoying la dolce vita... when time and money permit.

Westfield's T5 Renovation (adding about 10,000 sf of new concession space)

http://www.chicagot5.com/

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3487/60223118.jpg

Is MDW (Big Timber) being changed at all?

That website refers to completion in 2013. Why the heck does seemingly simple stuff take so long at ORD...

But the air cargo complex (FedEx, UA, UPS, Lufthansa, various others) will end up in between runways (unlike the USPS facility, which is south of the southernmost runway alignment), so there has to be either an underpass, or alternatively possibly access directly from the western boundary of the airfield somehow.

I believe the plan is to have a depressed roadway branching off from Irving Park just east of the tracks. It will pass beneath a taxiway, but not a runway.

I didn't notice this when I looked over the plans the first time.

It's gonna get really interesting when they try to squeeze the O'Hare Bypass through here, too.

So American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy and it is widely expected that they will be shrinking some of their weaker hubs. ORD is believed to be their weakest hub due to the fierce competition with UA and to a lesser extent WN.

I think it's safe to say we will unfortunately be seeing further flight reductions. Hopefully UA will pick of some of the slack.

^ Good.

Maybe other airlines that have been wanting to break into O'Hare can get in on the action.

uhh, southwest doesn't serve ORD, they're only at MDW.

Still serve many of the same passengers. I know when I had family in Chicago we would use whatever airline was cheaper, regardless of if it was into ORD or MDW. But Southwest doesn't really compete for business contracts as much as UA and AA, hence the 'lesser extent'.