Atlanta airport to spend $1 million a day on construction
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, often called a never-ending construction project, is entering an intensive period with plans to spend $1 million a day on construction work.
One of the Atlanta airport’s biggest and most complex projects is its yearslong effort to expand Concourse D.
The concourse, once the airport’s narrowest, is being widened and extended through a complex prefab construction process.
Hartsfield-Jackson started building each piece of the concourse expansion at a nearby construction site back in 2023. The project to widen the concourse piece by piece is expected to take until 2029 to complete, and the estimated cost has now risen to about $1.5 billion from about $1.4 billion in earlier stages of construction.
“We’re building these structures, and picking them up and moving them,” said Frank Rucker, the airport’s senior deputy general manager of infrastructure. “This is cutting-edge technology.”
During an overnight period this month, the airport rolled across the airfield an 11th module for the widening project — a 217-foot long, 1,088-ton piece of concourse transported more than a mile to Concourse D.
But the Concourse D widening is not the only construction project underway.
During this intensive period of construction, the airport expects to perform about $1 million of construction work a day through fall 2027.
Parking deck teardown
One project that will be particularly disruptive to travelers driving to Terminal South is the upcoming demolition and reconstruction of the old South parking deck.
That will lead to the closure of the South lower roadway for two years, starting in January.
To prepare for the demolition, Hartsfield-Jackson built a new South Red Deck, which opened in June on the former site of the South economy surface lot and is connected to the terminal via pedestrian bridge.
The old South parking deck is already closed, and the airport has been decommissioning systems and salvaging components for its other parking facilities. Also closed are Delta’s lower-level PreCheck bag drop location, lower-level Sky Cap curbside check-in and the Delta Dash express shipping facility that was next to the South deck.
The closures, along with the replacement of the old South deck with the new South Red Deck, are major changes this year for many travelers. More work will start ahead of the busy holiday travel season.
Hartsfield-Jackson said starting in early November, it will close a single lane of the South roadway around the southeast end of the old South deck, to allow for demolition of areas closest to the road.
The rest of the back deck demolition will continue into January, “at which point we move to the deck closest to Domestic Terminal South which will require closure of the lower roadway,” said Hartsfield-Jackson spokeswoman Alnissa Ruiz-Craig.
New administrative building
Another project is something travelers may have noticed driving to the Atlanta airport’s domestic terminal recently. If you saw a huge building under construction — and wondered ‘what the heck is that?’ — it is likely the new Aviation Administration Center.
It’s being built on a site formerly considered for an airport hotel right next to the terminal — first envisioned to be an InterContinental, then shifted to a Hilton, before the idea was scrapped altogether by the developer in 2022.
The following year, the airport proposed a different use for the site next to the terminal — a $242 million administrative office building to consolidate hundreds of employees who are currently spread across the airport.
The construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and the building is expected to open sometime early next year.
Plane Train cars
Inside Hartsfield-Jackson, the airport has been gradually replacing older Plane Train cars and is purchasing another 29 new vehicles as replacements for the fleet. It has made multiple payments for the vehicles, with Atlanta City Council last month approving about $71.3 million for the next payment.
The original Plane Train fleet had about 59 vehicles, with four vehicles in each train. The airport’s recent Plane Train tunnel extension project to increase the capacity and reduce wait times involved adding 14 vehicles.
The airport is now in the process of replacing older vehicles, buying a first tranche of 20 vehicles and a second tranche of another 29, to replace 49 of the original 59 older vehicles.
The final 10 older vehicles, which have been in service since 2012 when the international terminal opened, are expected to be replaced in around 2030.