HAVE A NICE FLIGHT Charlotte Douglas International Airport
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Ah, air travel. We don our finest clothes, wait in luxurious gateside lounges where we are treated like royalty, board an expansive shiny aircraft with spacious and luxurious seats, and exchange greetings with a chipper stewardess in a posh hat who welcomes us with cocktails and a lobster dinner. It’s seamless! It’s glamorous! Our apologies, we were remembering air travel in the 1960’s. Fast forward a half-century, and air travel is, thankfully, much more affordable and accessible. It’s also much more stressful: the snaking security lines, the indignities of removing one’s shoes in public, the oversold flights, the shrinking seats, the inevitable silent armrest negotiations with a stranger, the innumerable nickel-and-dime charges (they want us to PAY for the headphones now?) and now we don’t even have the SkyMall magazine to entertain us anymore. Add a series of small irritations, such as restrooms with no provision for carry-on luggage, marathon sprints through poorly-planned terminal connectors with confusing signage, and a dingy boarding area with low ceilings and a flickering light in need of maintenance, and the miracle of flight can start to feel somewhat oppressive.
Brian Bresg, LS3P’s Aviation and Transportation Practice Leader, gets it. In his more than 25 years in the industry, Brian has handled just about any airport design challenge you could imagine, and he has impressive list of ongoing projects for Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CDIA) to prove it. Need an airport master plan involving everything from parking decks to break rooms for the baggage handlers? No problem. Upgrade decrepit escalators? Sure. Major multiphase ten-year terminal expansion? Of course. New signage for the valet parking? No job too small. Every facet of an airport matters, from long-range planning and the planning of future infrastructure needs to the small details such as whether the automatic faucets work. These details matter to passengers, and have a big impact on whether they can navigate efficiently and enjoy the experience. They also matter to the client, who has a critical responsibility for safety as well as the operational budget. Not least, these details matter to CLT. A thriving airport is a matter of civic pride, and it serves for many people as the “front door” of the city, whether they’re local or visiting for business or pleasure. First impressions can have a major impact, and ease of travel is imperative for commerce and growth of the city.
1999 Brian’s involvement with CLT began the way many great projects do: through relationships. Back in 1999, the airport issued an RFQ for a $30 million terminal expansion project. TBA2 (which merged with LS3P in 2000) pursued the project with The Wilson Group, a firm founded by a colleague of Brian’s from a previous firm where both had worked on CLT projects together. Chris Ions led the project team, and that first successful CLT project laid the foundation for a long, productive relationship between LS3P and the airport. In the intervening years, the aviation and transportation team has completed more than 35 additional CLT projects. Airport Development, a department of the City of Charlotte, was the client for the majority of projects, and several projects were contracted directly with US Airways, now American Airlines since the 2015 merger.
CONCOURSE D Phase I & FIS
INTERNATIONAL CONCOURSE D Expansion
REGIONAL CONCOURSE E
LANDSIDE MASTER PLAN
2014 2013 2012 2010 2009 2007 2006 2005 2003 2002 2001
WEST DAILY PARKING DECK
CONCOURSE D EXPANSION Phase IV
MAIN TERMINAL TICKET LOBBY RENOVATION
EAST DAILY PARKING DECK
CONCOURSE E EXPANSION Phase V
BUSINESS VALET PARKING Deck 1
CONCOURSE E EXPANSION Phase VI
LANDSIDE MASTER PLAN
PREMIUM HOURLY PARKING DECK AND RENTAL CAR FACILITY
ELEVATED CURBSIDE ROADWAY
CONCOURSE E EXPANSION Phase VII
BUSINESS VALET 2 PARKING DECK
REMOTE RENTAL CAR SERVICE FACILITY CONCEPTUAL PLANNING
ELEVATED ROADWAY CANOPY (CONCEPTUAL)
TERMINAL RENOVATION PROGRAM
UNDERGROUND PEDESTRIAN PASSAGEWAYS
MAIN TERMINAL EXPANSION (CONCEPTUAL)
CONCOURSE E EXPANSION
Phase VIII
LONG TERM PARKING TOLL PLAZAS
CONCOURSE A
North Planning Study
Brian credits the longevity of this relationship to a few key principles.
1. Always, always plan for the future. A multiphase project requires the ability to think aheadsometimes accommodating for “unknown unknowns,” so both flexibility and foresight are key. Planning for future growth, future facilities, future circulation paths, future technologies, and future regulations is a real challenge; however, it is a testament to our designers collaborating on 36+ projects over the past 17 years that the airport has never had to “undo” any work as the airport grows and new facilities come online. All design work is modeled to be additive.
2. Take care of your client. LS3P’s successful track record at CLT is built on meticulous attention to client service. For designs of this complexity, merely “getting the job done” would have been a missed opportunity. Instead, the team has always gone the extra mile to show the client what was possible, seizing upon opportunities of the moment which would pay big dividends for the client in the future. The scope of LS3P’s parking deck work at CLT is an excellent example of this dedication. In designing a highly-efficient double stranded helix pathway through the Rental Car Facility and Hourly deck, for example, the design allows streamlined entry and exit with additional space freed up for passenger convenience and increased revenue for the client. The Business Valet parking decks were so cost-effective and convenient that the growth exceeded expectations and CLT quickly added a second valet deck to satisfy the new demand. All decks at CDIA are also designed to accommodate future APMs (automated people movers), which is part of Charlotte’s long-range transit plan. All the parking decks are
built along a common circulation spine, with clearances provided for APMs and foundation elevations lowered in several key locations which may eventually serve as terminal facilities. This type of planning and design takes significantly more coordination and research; however, the preparation ultimately positions the client to take advantage of future transit opportunities with a minimum of expense and construction. Client service often means sweating the details of the smallest projects as well as the most visionary master plans, and Brian and his team are enthusiastic about each one. They’ve planned aboveceiling routes and installed baggage conveyors, designed exterior and interior monumental signage and wayfinding, and renovated the parking tollbooth canopies; these jobs aren’t as involved (or as glamourous) as a concourse expansion or a transit master plan, but they’re critical to operations and make a big difference in terms of the passenger experience. No job is too big; no job is too small.
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Airports are gateways to the cities they serve and demand iconic treatment as an expression of civic vision and aviation technology. BRIAN BRESG
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AVIATION & TRANSPORTATION PRACTICE LEADER
3. Stay nimble. Change is a certainty; however, few could have predicted the nature and scope of the changes within the airline industry over the last two decades. During a major landside master planning effort to address parking, roadways and passenger and vehicular circulation around the main terminal, the team was 80% complete with the design and CDs of the West Daily Parking Deck on September 11, 2001. In an instant, everything changed; not just for the project, but for every facet of air travel. Airports nationwide
shut down as all fights were grounded. A week later, when the first commercial flights recommenced, the aviation landscape looked very different. The TSA was created, implementing new security protocols which now took precedence over all other issues, and the project was shelved instantly and abruptly for six months. As the industry gradually recovered, both new business models and new facilities came with a new set of rules. Safety, as always, is paramount.
The projects have also evolved along with the City of Charlotte. Charlotte’s substantial growth has required commensurate growth for CLT, both as a major transit hub and a destination in its own right. Over a 3-year period, the airport required 18 new gates and expanded support services to accommodate them, providing ongoing opportunities for LS3P as well as for the airport and the city. The aviation and transportation team doesn’t take these ongoing opportunities for granted. Successful partnerships are built upon
relationships, but over the years people retire, leadership changes, and a hungry market breeds a very competitive environment. When RFQs lead to disappointing results, as inevitably happens from time to time, the best plan is to keep building relationships, keep serving the client, keep learning, and keep exploring. The team must be adaptive to the changing markets and environments. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but over a decades-long relationship, perseverance generally pays off.
4. Savor the challenges. Architecture is hard, achieving excellence is harder, and maintaining that is even harder still, but it’s worth the effort. The learning process is what keeps Brian motivated. His team is always learning, keeping abreast of the latest industry trends and technologies, always looking for the best solution to the puzzle of design, and always tackling new challenges with gusto. When the airport required a new federal inspections (FIS) area within the new International Concourse D, the team designed the new Concourse facility to phase the FIS to be built and operational utilizing the 2nd floor slab of the future terminal hold rooms as the temporary roof. The 30,000 SF + D Concourse holds rooms and support spaces utilizing a 120 clear span, which were then constructed over the course of the next 14 months on top of the fully operational FIS. When the airport needed upgrades to the hourly toll plaza canopy and support building, the size of the project belied the complexity of having to renovate each element without removing any current operating lanes from service. The team took over an abandoned bus lane as a jumping-off point, shifting the construction incrementally so that two new lanes could be added prior to removing two existing lanes from service all while ensuring multiple surface lots and parking decks funneling through the plaza could exit swiftly. There’s always an interesting challenge to tackle, and that’s what makes design exciting.
5. Focus on the basics. In the long run, it all comes down to good design. With every project, large or small, Brian’s goal has been to deliver a design which is aesthetically pleasing, fully functional, constructible, and easy to maintain, and it’s a strategy which has solidified LS3P’s role as a trusted advisor. Good design delights the end users, makes operations more efficient for the client, respects the project budget, and creates a better place. It’s why 80% of our work comes from repeat clients; it’s also why the 123,000 CLT travelers per day who can navigate easily, check in easily, fly safely, and get home faster might feel like they’ve won the lottery. The details matter. Design matters.
While these principles may seem like a given on any project, they take on a different level of complexity in a relationship spanning nearly two decades and almost forty individual projects in a rapidly changing sector. The foresight required to implement a multiphase terminal expansion spanning a decade without ever having to demolish any previous work requires a prescience built upon expertise, sound design logic, and extremely close collaboration among all team members.
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