Airport architect wants to help with revamp
Katselas designed midfield terminal
Tasso Katselas, the architect behind Pittsburgh International Airport’s midfield terminal, wants to return for an encore.
Mr. Katselas said Tuesday that his firm, TKA Architects Inc., plans to respond to the request for qualifications issued by the Allegheny County Airport Authority for architectural and engineering services related to Pittsburgh International’s proposed $1.1 billion modernization.
The work would involve a new facility for ticketing, security and baggage handling — replacing one of the buildings Mr. Katselas designed as part of the midfield construction more than 25 years ago.
“I think we’re the right people to do it if they give us a chance,” the 90-year-old Mr. Katselas said.
Built for the former US Airways, the widely acclaimed midfield terminal was considered state-of-the-art when it opened in 1992.
It now is seen by the authority as outdated and too big for current traffic volume, which is less than half of what it was
before US Airways, now part of American Airlines, shut down its Pittsburgh hub in 2004.
The terminal features a landside building for ticketing, baggage check-in and retrieval, and security and an X-shaped airside building for getting on and off planes. A tram whisks travelers between the two buildings.
Outside, the network of roadways circling the landside building splits arriving and departing traffic and has separate spots for shuttle, taxi and transit pickups.
Mr. Katselas considers the traffic separation patterns and the “revolutionary” Xshaped design of the boarding terminal as the key components of midfield. “Without those two elements, we would have done just an ordinary facility,” he said.
He is now working on what he calls a “concept” to help maintain the circulation plan for vehicles as part of the modernization. The newland side building would be tucked between the C and D concourses of the boarding terminal.
As part of the plan, existing roads into the airport will have to be extended to reach the new building. And new roads will have to be built to handle arriving and departing traffic and commercial vehicles.
Mr. Katselas declined to detail his circulation plan but said he is working on a concept that “might help us at least keep the simplicity of the plan we have now.”
Too many airports, he said, herd different modes of traffic into the same space, creating congestion and chaos. An airport’s road network is important because it amounts to a traveler’s “first impression and last impression,” he said.
Mr. Katselas didn’t have much else to say about the plan or the design he has in mind for the new landside building. “It’s in my head and on a couple of pieces of paper,” he said.
The architect — who also designed the Carnegie Science Center, the Allegheny County Jail, and Community College of Allegheny County on the North Side — said his firm is in the process of teaming up with an engineering firm to bid.
“We’re going to make a submittal with the firm and hope we’re successful. If not, I will continue to eat and drink and write and design,” he said.
Firms must respond to the request for qualifications by Feb. 21. A selection is expected in May.
As part of the $1.1 billion overhaul, the current landside building will be either demolished or made available for reuse and the tram will be eliminated. The number of gates in the boarding terminal will be reduced from 75 to 51.
The new $783.8 million, 632,000-square-foot landside building will consist of three levels — one for baggage operations; one for check-in, security screening and domestic baggage claim; and one for authority administrative offices and conference space.
A new six-story, $258.8 million parking garage will feature 4,500 public spaces; rental car counters, pickup and return; and a ground transportation center.
The authority also has budgeted $57.1 million for new road network needed to accommodate the modernization.
Construction is expected to start in 2019 and be completed in 2023. The authority hopes to pay for the improvements through 20- to 30-year bonds, grants, passenger facility charges and revenue from natural gas drilling on airport property.
Despite the $1.1 billion price tag, the authority calculates that fees paid by the airport’s airlines will actually drop from an average of $12.69 to $9.73 (in today’s dollars), due in part to $23 million a year in savings it hopes to garner by closing landside and the tram and not having to maintain existing elevators, escalators and people movers.