Source: NOLA.com
Excerpt:
Sweeping walls of glass that evoke the slaloming curves of a giant luge track dominate the drawings of a brand new terminal at Louis Armstrong International Airport, unveiled with great pomp Thursday by a coterie of public officials.
The concept, created by a design team that included star Argentinian architect Cesar Pelli, is the end goal of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s ambitious, $826 million hope to have a re-imagined airport by May 2018 — just in time for New Orleans’ 300th anniversary. But the broader aim of the project, officials said, is to boost southeastern Louisiana’s historically laid-back economy.
“It’s really one of those things that has helped transform economies in other cities around the world,” Landrieu said.
The drawings have been nine months of putting pencil to paper since Landrieu decided to put 30 new arrival and departure gates in a presently unoccupied field north of the airport’s main runway. The mayor, who is in the thick of a reelection campaign, waited to release the drawings until the project had cleared federally required environmental impact assessments at the end of December, airport officials said.
Landrieu said Thursday (Jan. 16) that the price tag would be almost fully covered by airport revenues. A reworking of Interstate-10 to include a flyaway ramp from the Loyola Avenue exit for eastbound traffic would require about $85 million from the federal government.
Besides Pelli, the design team included Ray Manning of Manning Architects, who also serves as president pro-tem of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, the firm Leo A. Daly/Atkins Global and Lonnie Hewitt of Hewitt Washington Architects.
Along with the new gates, the project accounts for a new hotel, 2,000 parking spots and consolidated security checkpoints and ticket counters. The two concourses, with their stores and restaurants, would be connected behind the security lines — a far cry from the disjointed layout of the 55-year-old present terminal. Aviation Director Iftikhar Ahmad said the new design should not only better manage large groups of passengers descending on the city for conventions, but should also boost the airport’s own store and restaurant sales — ultimately making New Orleans a cheaper destination for airlines by lowering the fee they pay per passenger.
The project’s 650,000-square-foot expanse is decidedly smaller than the present building, but leaves room to expand to 43 gates, said Ahmad, who pointed out that the airport’s current Concourse A and part of Concourse C aren’t being used now.
The public officials present for the unveiling stretched from City Hall to the Capitol in Baton Rouge to Washington, D.C. Comparing it to the Superdome’s construction in 1975, Landrieu said the terminal project would create 13,000 short-term jobs and lead to an estimated $1.7 billion economic impact on the region. While such numbers are hard to prove, officials applauded the airport initiative.
“(Landrieu’s) vision for this region is exactly what we need,” Kenner Mayor Mike Yenni said. “We need a shot in the arm.”
Louis Armstrong Airport, originally christened Moisant Field after stunt pilot John Moisant fatally crashed into a nearby field in 1910, has a long history of unrealized renovations envisioned by endless lines of entrepreneurs and elected officials.
“We stand on the shoulders of those who go before us because, as you know, there have been long discussions about building an international airport but we just couldn’t seem to get it done,” Landrieu said.
The airport opened to the public after World War II, and within a decade, Kenner and St. Charles Parish offiicals had quashed the first talks of expansion. The present terminal, which received a $350 million facelift before the 2013 Super Bowl, was built in 1959. Two more concourses were added in 1974 and a runway was lengthened into St. Charles swampland in the 1980s.
That runway add-on led to a present-day controversy that is just now showing signs of abating. As a concession for the longer runway, New Orleans agreed to give St. Charles a seat on the Aviation Board. Henry Smith held the post for 26 years. After he died, the Parish Council nominated Luling businessman Neal Clulee to the post, but the Landrieu administration fought his candidacy for three years.
Earlier this month, St. Charles compromised, nominating Gary Smith Sr. of Magnolia Holdings Inc., to take his late father’s place on the board.
When Gov. Edwin Edwards was in office in the early 1990s, he suggested moving the airport to a spot halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Other groups suggested moving it to eastern New Orleans, Lacombe, LaPlace or Des Allemands. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin considered either moving it west of the Bonne Carre Spillway or privatizing it. Those talks died in 2009.
Asked how this plan would succeed where so many visions to relocate or redo the airport had failed over the years, Landrieu pointed to one reason: Landrieu.
“There was a complete and total commitment on my behalf and on behalf of the people of this city to make this happen,” he said. “The truth of the matter is, although the folks didn’t know it, they were actually acquiring the pieces of land. So I looked at four or five different options and said look, we’ve got to get this done. Failure is not an option.”
