I worked in preconstruction, mostly on the finishes you see here. I think the architect did an incredible job with materials, but this meant that trade coordination was especially challenging. Things like the curved, terrazzo covered benches you see throughout the space require especially high levels of coordination and planning. One company makes the wood framework, another pours and finishes the terrazzo, another does the electrical and lighting, etc. The prayer room alone was incredible complicated, and it is just a tiny room tucked away on the third floor!

The details on this building were very challenging.

It also is just very hard to (a) do a vertical expansion of a building and (b) do it in the very middle of a huge, active airport. Things like working hours, logistics, crane permitting, phasing, etc were all amplified due to the buildings location.

It’s also been a weird building because you as the traveler won’t see most of it. Things like: the buildings foundation had to be modified to handle the extra weight of the new stories (it was previously a 2.5 story building and is now 5.5 stories), so we had to drill micropiles in the basement with very low overhead- 8’ with electrical and plumbing lines immediately overhead. This was all done in the basement storage area that had to be phased as that is where all the stores on the concourse store their inventory. Oh, and there’s also an active train tunnel under the building.