September-October 2022 - 10

PARKING
Key Features at Asheville
One of the more unique features of
this parking facility is also one of the
most eye-catching.
Fresh Air Flow and
Aesthetic Appeal
" They were very concerned about
the first impression passengers would
have at their airport being a parking
garage, and so it was a really unique
challenge to try and get as much as
you can out of a garage on a reasonable
budget, " Rayfield said. " You see
garages that are just a big gray tilt up
concrete box and then you see some
garages that are similar to what we
did in Asheville, in particular this
is one that we're really proud of
because it has created such a striking
architectural identity for an airport
that hasn't seen a lot of new kind of
construction for a long time. "
The result allowed them to reflect
the local landscape, but still create
an open structure. The large metal
mountain motif that you see on the
face of the garage is created by perforated
metal and a variation in the size
of the perforations. From inside of the
garage, and you can see the perforations
are quite large, so it allows for
fresh air to flow through the garage.
Reisman said they were very
pleased with the result being a
very attractive facility, yet still
budget-friendly.
" We were fortunate enough that
with the architectural design we
ended up with, we ended up with
what has been fairly publicly referred
to by public officials in our community
as the best-looking garage in
western North Carolina, " Reisman
said. " And I think that took everybody
by surprise, and we were able
to do that without going overboard
budget-wise. The design team looked
real hard at some options to create an
aesthetic appeal that was affordable.
And ultimately, when you look at
what our construction cost was on
a per space basis, it was right in line
with what it would've been for any
other garage, yet we were still able to
Asheville Regional Airport
work in the architectural appeal that
the building has. "
More Parking Space
" We did not have a parking garage
before, we simply had open surface
parking previously and we had about
1,400 public parking spaces total
between the daily and the hourly
parking lots. The new parking garage
included a total of 1,324 parking
spaces, " Reisman said. " However, 224
of those spaces on the first level were
committed to the rental cars basically
for the rental return lot. So, in total,
even though the parking garage was
over 1,300 parking spaces, we ended
up with about 1,100 of those spaces
available for public parking. "
Challenges
According to Rayfield, anytime you're
building such a large structure that's
on an active airport, you don't have
the same site access and mobility
issues that you have compared to a
greenfield site. From a logistics and
a staging point of view, Rayfield said
10 \ AIRPORT BUSINESS / SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
Asheville Regional Airport
it's always more complicated to make
sure that you're not blocking access
roads where passengers must circulate
around the site.
" 360 degrees around the Norfolk
construction site, you had an active
parking garage, an active airport terminal
and active roadways on all four
sides. So, logistics drive those concerns
more than anything, as with
any airport project, the construction
phasing drives the solution even more
than the final design, " Rayfield said.
" You have to figure out how to get it
there, and so that was probably one
of the biggest challenges to just fill in
the whole site, maximize the buildable
area, but still leave your contractor
room to actually move around and
handle materials and everything along
those lines. "
The other challenge at Norfolk was
the arrivals building that the parking
garages connect to was built with a
future garage in mind, and they built
the elevator tower going up all nine
levels of the garage to accommodate
that in the future.
" It's a little bit more complicated in
that than it would've been to just build
it with the garage because number one,
it's nearly 20 years old, so you have
certain settlement issues. You have to
bring the elevator system up to current
code, and then you're tying in with an
existing structure, nine levels, which
doesn't give you as much construction
tolerance as it would if you built it
from scratch, " Rayfield said.
Rayfield said Asheville posed its
own set of unique challenges in that it
September-October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September-October 2022
