Structures are already being built for the Salt Lake City Airport Expansion project that Mayor Ralph Becker announced in January.
“Our airport’s aging facilities, seismic risks and need to accommodate growth, demand capital improvements,” Becker said in his State of the City address. “We need a new airport.”
According to a news release from the airport the project will take about 10 years and will create a single terminal, concourses, parking and support facilities.
The project is not expected to begin until 2013, but according to BYU student Tyler Miskin, some of the work has already been done or is under way.
Miskin is employed by RB&G Engineering, a company based out of Provo and has worked on projects for the Salt Lake City Airport.
“They’ve already built a huge de-icing pad on the east side of the airport,” Miskin said. “There is also one on the west side, but it isn’t finished yet.”
He explained that a de-icing pad is a place to put the airplanes while they are hosed with anti-freeze. Anti-freeze is poisonous, so these pads channel the runoff to special drains instead of into the water and air.
These will help to meet the “exacting energy and environmental design standards” mentioned by Becker.
In addition, workers have begun to examine what existing structures need to be fixed.
“We’ve examined the east runway to determine what parts of it needed to be redone,” Miskin said. “The whole top surface needs to be resurfaced.”
For frequent fliers out of Salt Lake City, including BYU students flying home for breaks, construction and the inconveniences it will cause are huge issues. Completing projects off-site like those explained by Miskin will hopefully prevent some of that inconvenience.
“[The project] has been planned in a way that customer impact will be minimized,” said Barbara Gann, spokeswoman for the airport, in a new release.
