Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport

[Atlriser]

Andrea: I'm pulling most of this from memory over the past 5 years so don't let forumers jump on me if not absolutely correct but should give you the general idea:

The initial desing for the I-Terminal was 600,000 SF I believe. During the process of design, the city increased it to almost 1 million square feet and I believe was at 1.2 at the final parting of ways. They also added 6 more gates I think taking it from 10 to 16. The added all the equipment for each gate which at the time was over $20 million/gate. Also during the time of the initial cost estimates to the time of the final estiamtes, the cost of steel had increased over 100% because of the booming Chinese/Indian/Dubai construction activities that weren't occuring in such huge quantities 10 years ago. You can only imagine the amount of steel in the design. The city wanted huge open expansions with lots of sunlight....which is good but requires huge amounts of steel. Well when final construction costs were being hammered out the cost had gone from I believe 600 M to 1 B; however, if you will review most of the doumentation in the AJC and reported by the city....they never mention the huge amounts and additions the city requested. It's as if the city did no wrong and the design team did. Well, I'll say this...the design team in place probably has designed 80% of the world's airports over the past 20 years or so. It's not like they didn't know the process and how to do their job. That's my take.

D Concourse: No it's not complete. This is the kind of things delaying it now. Initially the bathroom exhaust systems were separated from the concourse air. The new design of HVAC removed this separation and went to an open plenum I believe. Well, the new bathrooms didn't include any exhaust fans so the air would be pumped back into the concourse....YUCK! So after we started closing up the ceilings, then the inspectors said wait where's the exhaust fans. They weren't designed initially into the new layout....that's the kind of crap you see out their on regular basis. Poor upfront planning and coordination. While I don't know for a fact, my previous experiences lead me to believe it's mainly the city's fault and also the airport always wanting to come in under budget to the council. E alone has had over $30 million in change orders over the original $70 million or so budgeted. The main contractors have always bid the projects as is because they always knew the airport would approve CO's without hesitation. Well now the council has started balking at so many changes and it's threw a wrench into the whole process....i'm not saying whether it's right or wrong I just know it's done backwards lots of time.

Then again, your dealing with such a huge budget, facility and number of contractors....I wouldn't want DeCosta's job for anything. It's only going to be a nightmare given the scale; however, things are short sighted overall which is typical of anything government run IMO!