The board of directors of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) has begun an eight-year process aimed at renovating the airport’s four original terminals, by approving the first major expenditure for the DFW Terminal Development Program.
The first expenditure to be approved is a $20.75 million package for the URS Corporation of Dallas to begin preliminary design work for the renovation of Terminals A, B, C and E, which opened with the airport in 1974.
Final costs for the Terminal Development Program are still in review, but initial estimates place the cost somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion, with funding to come from bond sales, available capital and other sources, according to DFW.
The renovation project, which includes needed facelifts for passenger areas including ticketing, security and concessions areas, will be one of the most significant construction projects in the North Texas region over the next decade, DFW says. Plans also call for the replacement of terminal systems such as electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling, security, conveyance and telecommunications.
“While they have served us very well, our four original terminals are 35 years old now, and their internal systems need replacement,” says Jeff Fegan, chief executive officer for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. “The renovation of these terminals is critical for the airport’s long term outlook, because this project will keep DFW highly attractive to customers and cost-effective for airlines well into the 21st century.”
DFW has prepared preliminary renovation sketches of how the exterior and interior areas of its original four terminals will look following the massive facelift they will receive under a $1.5 billion-plus, eight-year upgrade program that DFW's board of directors launched in September 2009. This is a preliminary sketch of a security checkpoint area in a terminal following its facelift
Current plans call for construction to begin in early 2011, just after Super Bowl XLV in nearby Arlington, Texas. Terminal A will be the first terminal completed, in 2014, and the entire project should be complete by the end of 2017, according to the airport’s board. The construction phase requires one-third of each terminal to be shut down at a time.
“A great deal has changed since these terminals were designed in the 1960s, including vastly different modern requirements for security and customer services,” says Jim Crites, executive vice president of operations for DFW. “The renovated terminals will be very customer-focused, so we should see big gains in customer satisfaction as well as operational efficiency and revenues.”
Design concepts call for the consolidation of concessions areas into villages reminiscent of DFW’s International Terminal D, which opened in 2005 at a cost of $1.2 billion.
“We certainly know that International Terminal D works extremely well, and passengers worldwide have consistently named it one of the top airport facilities in the world,” says Fegan. “We hope to apply what we have learned with International Terminal D to the other terminals, so every passenger who visits DFW will want to come back here time and again.”
The Terminal Development Program is a major component of the airport’s current Master Plan, which also includes plans to accommodate regional rail service from both Dallas Area Rapid Transit and The Fort Worth Transportation Authority, and participate in area highway renovation projects and other major initiatives.
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