• Posted: February 11, 2019
• better construction, Chicago Construction Market

Over the next eight years – and through $8.5 billion – Chicago is set to thrust O’Hare International Airport into the 21^st century with modern amenities many airports around the world already offer their airline partners and customers.

Chicago’s plan for O’Hare, dubbed O’Hare 21, will upgrade and expand certain terminals, while building new terminals for international arrivals and increasing O’Hare’s overall terminal square footage by more than 60 percent, from 5.5 to 8.9 million and increase gate frontage by 25 percent.

“The new O’Hare Global Terminal will be the first new terminal since we opened terminal 5 in 1993,” said Commissioner of Chicago Department of Aviation, Jamie Rhee.

Rhee adds that the new global terminal will allow airline carriers like American and United to quickly get their passengers to their domestic gates when they’re arriving from an international flight by bypassing the train system that’s currently in place.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “the construction proposal includes a state-of-the-art global terminal, dozens of new gates and several additional concourses, and it seeks to transform an airport with a reputation for gridlock and delays by increasing growth in international flights and creating more room for domestic carriers. The city said its cost would be covered by airline ticket fees, and the City Council has so far approved $4 billion in borrowing.”

“The O’Hare transformation is a boarding pass to a brighter future for Chicago,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel in March of 2018. “We are creating tens of thousands of jobs across our city for years to come, injecting billions of dollars into our economy and positioning O’Hare as the gold standard for airports around the world. Even by the sky-high standards of a city famous for making no little plans, the O’Hare expansion is a big deal for Chicago’s future.”

The city anticipates that the new O’Hare project will 60,000 construction jobs over the next eight years, and tens of thousands of permanent jobs.

O’Hare is expected to serve nearly 100 million passengers in the next decade, up from nearly 80 million served today. As O’Hare adds gates and improves its terminals, passenger volumes are expected to keep pace with a strong demand for air travel worldwide. To prepare for future passenger volumes, the plan includes a mechanism for continued development beyond the first phase of the program so that O’Hare can flexibly manage the demand forecasted by the industry.

The terminal expansion plan, anticipated for completion in 2028, will be the single largest and most expensive terminal revamp in O’Hare’s history.