The state is poised to spend $425 million on an extensive renovation of the busiest parts of BWI Marshall Airport.
On Wednesday, the state’s spending board approved a $332.5 million contract with a Bethesda-based construction firm to advance that massive capital improvement project at the Anne Arundel County airport.
The contract with Clark Construction Group is the second construction package for the overall three-year project that would connect the airport’s A and B concourses and improve its luggage handling by creating a new security screening system.
It is the largest terminal improvement project in the airport’s history, said Jonathan Dean, a spokesperson for BWI. The project was temporarily placed on hold in April 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The A and B concourses serve Southwest Airlines, by far BWI’s dominant carrier. Ricky Smith, the executive director/CEO of the Maryland Aviation Administration, told the board on Wednesday that the airpot’s current baggage handling system is slowing down Southwest’s operations.
“This is a multi-year project that will improve the customer’s experience at the airport and will provide Southwest Airlines with much-needed capacity, particularly with the baggage handling system. It is the one aspect of our facility that is stunting their growth at this point,” Smith said. “And so we’re excited to get this project moving along.”
Preliminary work on the project started earlier this year when the Maryland Board of Public Works, which approves nearly all state public works projects, approved a $25.6 million contract with Clark in January to prepare the airport for construction, such as erecting temporary partitions and scaffolding and inspecting the site.
Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Dereck Davis agreed to approve the second construction package, which funds the rest of the construction costs.
The planned “A/B Connector and Baggage Handling System Improvement program” would create an addition that connects the two concourses, renovate restrooms and add food and retail concession shops. The expansion also would make luggage handing more efficient so flyers’ bags get on and off planes faster and flights can depart more quickly. Five gates would be sized for the new Boeing 737-MAX8 planes used by Southwest Airlines.
Construction on the new baggage-handling system and concourse connector is scheduled to be mostly finished by late 2025. Officials aim for the entire improvement project to be completed by the summer of 2026, Dean said.
The $425 million project is funded mostly by airport revenue bonds, which the Maryland Aviation Administration and Maryland Department of Transportation issued for the first time in July 2021, Dean said. The $200 million bonds issuance was well-received by rating agencies and investors, he added, and a second bond issuance is planned for 2023 to complete the project.
Airport revenue bonds are backed solely by airport revenues, which are pledged to support bond repayment, the MAA wrote in its annual report to the Maryland General Assembly. Smith said the MAA is considering applying for some federal dollars to support the project, but federal funding would replace other sources of funding that have already been identified.
To allow construction on the connector and baggage-handling system, which requires five gates to be temporarily closed during the renovations, five new Southwest gates were added to Concourse A in August 2020. The $48 million, 55,000-square-foot addition included modernized restrooms and hold rooms for passengers waiting to board, upgraded boarding bridges and three new food and retail concessions.
“Well, it’s a difficult time for air travel and construction projects, together. So hats off to both you and Southwest because Southwest is a lynchpin for that airport, and both of your entities are doing great jobs,” Franchot said before the board voted to approve Clark’s contract.
Clark Construction Group did not respond to a request for comment.