The Salt Lake City International Airport Redevelopment Program represents the largest public works and construction project in Utah’s history.
The New SLC is the first new U.S. hub airport built in the 21st century. HOK designed the project to replace three aging terminals and concourses with a modern, sustainable facility. With two of the four project phases complete, the new SLC adds more than 65 gates between two concourses, celebrates Utah’s natural beauty and culture, and brings in roughly $11.5 billion to the local economy.
Excerpted from The Salt Lake Tribune:
It is the new Salt Lake City International Airport and, for all it does for the city, its economic health and its reputation as a city of the future, it is the 2023 Utahn of the Year.
One might reasonably quibble that the Utahn of any year should be a person, not an inanimate object. But, with so much coming, going and growing, we would make the case that such an airport is very much alive.
The old airport for this rapidly growing community was bursting at the seams. It saw more than 26 million passengers a year, in terminals designed for half as many people more than six decades before.
The first phase of the new airport opened in 2020. The most recent addition—13 gates and 11 restaurants—was inaugurated on Oct. 31. Plans for still more expansion are on the drawing boards through 2027.
The new layout of the concourses and gates reduces taxi and idle times considerably, and all those little service vehicles you see scurrying around the aircraft are now mostly electric rather than diesel or gas. There are also 164 charging stations for electric vehicles and most shuttle buses and other vehicles now run on compressed natural gas.
All that, according to the airport, cuts annual greenhouse emissions by more than 19,000 metric tons.
Overall, the new SLC is the kind of well-planned public infrastructure project—a federal-local/public-private cooperative—that any community can be proud of.
Read the full article here.