Concourse A opens a Gate for Seattle

When contractors started work at Sea-Tac's Concourse A, they couldn't have predicted they would be changing course in mid-flight.

Public Art adds atmosphere of the new concourse and establishes it as the Gateway to Seattle. (Photo courtesy of Tim Weyland)

Halfway through the project and millions of dollars into the budget, unforeseen circumstances forced the project team to revise its flight plan. Instead of landing the $587 million project on time and under budget, the goal became to finish the project as close to the original time and budget as possible.

Everything changed because of Sept. 11. Tighter restrictions in airport facilities gave the owner, the Port of Seattle, two choices: finish Concourse A as planned and then go back and do a major retrofit or redesign it during construction to meet the new security guidelines.

Logically the Port chose the latter, forcing the project team - Clark Construction, Parsons and architect NBBJ, all of Seattle- to search for solutions.

The Port could not have asked for a more seasoned team of managers. The three had headed up multifaceted projects before. Granger Stuck was the project manager for the Washington, D.C., convention center. Sam Wright, the program leader from Parsons, had been the operations manager at Lease Crutcher Lewis, Seattle and worked on several projects such as the Chicago Hyatt. Tim Weyland, of NBBJ, had worked on several complicated hospitals. As a firm, NBBJ also has a multitude of airport projects to its credit.

Originally the date for opening was February 1, 2004 and the original budget $365 million. Because of the redesign the concourse opened June 15, 2004 with a contract price of $587 million. Subcontractors on the job agree that for the number of changes that needed to be made, the job should have run at least a year behind schedule.

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Before Sept. 11 Sea-Tac was well situated for major construction to take place. "Fortunately there was plenty of excess room for people to move into as we demolished their spaces to make room for the 1 million- sq.-ft. concourse," Wright said. Airplane hangars were moved, office space consolidated and airline support areas shifted to other areas.

From the top of the five-story office building, which consolidates Port and airline offices, to the depths of the underground utility space, the concourse is 13 stories. NBBJ's design reflects the need to "put joy back into air travel," Weyland said. With its openness, public art and ease of flow, the concourse acts as the gateway to Seattle. Tightened security had to keep that aspect alive.

Though the boarding system is now rigorous, travelers will marvel at the improvements to the flight information system and the gating. Visitors will be able to see flight information arranged by point of departure and destination instead of by airline. And as a revenue-raising device for the Port, gates will not be permanently assigned to any particular airline, allowing more space for new airlines to enter the Seattle market.

"This allows for common use of computer equipment," said Bob Parker, Port media officer. "Now airlines cannot lock up gate space they aren't using in order to keep their competition out."

Though the redesign created havoc, it also fostered a sense of camaraderie between all the members of the team.

"There was no digging in of heels, nobody saying they wouldn't cooperate," Stuck said. "We all knew the changes had to be made so we all worked together."

The first step was to enforce security for the hundreds of workers onsite. Normally, construction workers at airports wear I.D. badges for access into restricted areas. Badges were still required, but receiving one meant individuals had taken a four-hour security class, were fingerprinted and passed an FBI background check.

Keeping the same workers on the job and avoiding "rebadging" was of prime importance.

Structurally, the biggest changes came to the baggage collection system, which had to allow for bags to be individually screened. Every bag now goes through a CTX scanner, then to its geographic destination if safe or onto another location for further screening. Not only was the entire conveyor system rearranged, it had to accommodate 14 ten-ton CTX scanners, which search for explosive devices in baggage.

Conveyor subcontractor G&T Conveyors, of Taveres, Fla., received a stop work order for the outbound conveyor systems November 1, 2002, said Stan Van Meter, manager of systems development for G&T. Governmental agencies would have to approve a baggage handling system redesign to make sure it met new requirements for airport safety. The 14 CTX machines had to be installed within the confines of the original space, with enough extra room to remove one in case it needed repairs.

To speed up the redesign project managers took several steps. Weyland developed a specific communication tools so everyone on the A/E team could keep abreast of issues. The issues tracker, a database of all decisions, could be dispersed daily. On the construction side, Wright instituted design/build teams, which treated each change as a separate contract.

Besides G&T, the mechanical contractor, University Mechanical of Seattle, and the electrical contractor, Valley Electric of Kent felt the most impact.

"The changes that occurred for us were mostly spatial," said Bryan Eppler, UMC project manager. "We had to put all the ductwork into less space, because now more conveyors were required."

Ernie Ward, president of Valley Electric, said his firm was flexible when it was forced to change the electrical systems to accommodate the baggage system and entirely new low-voltage systems. Valley tripled its staff to accommodate the changes and allow for the fastest redesign possible.

"We really work to plan our projects well in advance," he added. "Because of all the redesign and a few other issues, we consider this one of the top five most difficult projects we have ever done."

Another beefed up portion of the building is the Communications Room, now designed to withstand any disaster, natural or otherwise. The combined communication and control system contains phone and electrical systems that support the police call center, the alarm response system, emergency command and general airport communications. The details of the 25,000-sq.-ft. center are classified for security purposes.

Clark built out the shell of the Communications Room and Turner Construction of Seattle finished the project as a tenant improvement. URS Corp. of Seattle was the architect for that portion of the project.

The project team faced other hurdles at the airport. One was hooking up the new mechanical and electrical with the existing systems. Throughout the project different parts of the airport were shut down, while old mechanical systems were tied into the new ones.

Tenant improvement work for the retail section of the concourse was the last leg of the journey. In an effort to showcase the diversity of the region, the Port elected to lease the space to minority-owned businesses. Few had the experience of building out a space under an extremely tight schedule, and were still busy building three weeks before opening.

Next at Sea-Tac International airport will be a new Concourse C, which basically ties all the concourses together and eliminates the need to check in and out security when changing planes.