Engineering Inc. - September/October 2007 - (Page 28) MULTI-PROJECT FEATURE Construction crews install a new 9,000-foot runway at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. The $1 billion project was completed in 2006. Brad Simmons flying High in st. Louis city’s airport gets a major makeover PROJECT: Lambert-st. Louis International Airport Expansion Program, st. Louis FIRM: Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., Pasadena, Calif. t took nearly eight years of planning and construction, but 2006 marked the completion of an extensive expansion program at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL). The massive, $1 billon capital improvement project was conceived to meet the escalating demands of the region’s aging and overtaxed airport infrastructure. Among its many improvements: a new 9,000-foot runway, which runs parallel to the airport’s two existing primary runways, two 9,000-foot taxiways and connecting taxiways, modifications to six major roadways, an airfield fire station, a school and a firehouse in a nearby housing district 28 ENGINEERING INC. I and the acquisition of nearly 2,000 residential and commercial pieces of real estate. “The goal of the project is to help promote the St. Louis area with a strong airport and to foster growth in the local aviation industry—and to help support St. Louis airport consumers,” says Brad Simmons, vice president for Pasadena, Calif.-based Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. Jacobs—along with joint venture partners Parsons Corp., also of Pasadena, and Kwame Building Group of St. Louis—was tapped to manage the expansion following its approval by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). “We’ve had a relationship with the airport since the 1960s performing design work and providing planning, design and construction management services, as well as a decade-long relationship with the FAA as part of its nationwide architectural engineering services program,” says Simmons. Gerard Slay, senior deputy director for STL, says the joint venture team was chosen for its combined management experience with large capital programs. “We are very pleased with the way the joint venture managed the project, the contractors and the disadvantaged and minority-owned business enterprise participation,” says Slay. The project team performed as an extension of the city’s— and STL’s—management staff. Administrators hired the requisite design firms and contractors. Responsibilities included scheduling, estimating, planning and programming, design and construction management, and contract management services, including the minority company participation program. “The project involved 550 companies, largely local, with 20 percent of them either minority-owned or disadvantaged, and 4,000 direct construction personnel with an estimated 13,800 total jobs engaged in the 1,500-acre site,” Simmons recalls. One of the most difficult challenges was meeting the schedule and cost requirements of the project, he says. “Program management requires a holistic approach to problem solving and involves a great deal of coordination and planning among everyone involved,” Simmons explains. Plus, the airport had to remain open during the entire construction process, making constant and open communication between the members of the joint venture, the FAA, the airport management team, the Transportation Security Administration and all other contractors and designers essential. Another challenge was management of the schedule and associated costs of a 1,200-foot tunnel section of Lindbergh Boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares used by travelers to get to and from the airport. Simmons says project administrators saved an estimated six months of construction time and $8 million through a twostep process by which 660 30ton pre-cast beams were set on top of the tunnel’s existing cast-in-place concrete wall system. Then, a two-and-a-halffoot-thick layer of concrete was poured over the beams to create a roof. Organizers say the runway came in under budget and was completed six months early, a rarity for such large-scale capital improvements. n sEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2007
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